Hunted - 19 BBY turnabout
by Ta Pink
Summary: It is 19 BBY, Order 66 is operational and Obi-Wan Kenobi is in deep trouble. A couple of events don't go as canon, causing history to be changed forever. For better or for worse? This is the question. The Jedi are persecuted, so is anyone who disagrees with the establishment. (Obi-Wan/Satine, Anakin/Padme)
1. Chapter 1

Moments after Anakin Skywalker sealed his fate by cutting Mace Windu's hand and bowing before the man he should've rather made his enemy, Darth Sidious initiated Order 66, wreaking havoc across an already struggling galaxy.

Blind and deaf in his unfeeling madness, Skywalker vigorously followed Palpatine's every command. Every action he carried out, every life he cut short distanced him a little further from what remained of his humanity, and from his initial "good intentions".

In the meantime, on Utapau, the diligent Kenobi was defeating Grievous.

Little did he know, by setting on fire the heart of the more-machine-than-Kaleesh tool of mass destruction, he had also destroyed a microchip containing hundreds of codes of access to Separatist prisons across the galaxy. A microchip the late Count Dooku had personally inserted into Grievous' pulsating organ to keep it safe and hidden.

As Grievous' hybrid body inexorably met his end, hundreds of mechanical doors sprang open, liberating those who were still alive among Dooku's prisoners. While thousands of Jedi were about to meet their end galaxy-wide, a handful of dozens of (mostly unjustly detained) captives finally regained their unhoped-for freedom.

Among them, was Satine Kryze, former Duchess of Mandalore, long thought dead.

Kenobi, of course, was oblivious to all that.


	2. Fortuity

9 months earlier, in 20 BBY, Maul had brought death and chaos on Mandalore. He couldn't care any less about the Mandos' culture, warrior ways, honor code or - first and foremost - the fate of their planet and Sector. All he cared about was _revenge,_ and ultimately, his own greatness. Maul had wished to step up his galactic game, that's why he had forged alliances with Death Watch first, the Black Sun and the Pyke Syndicate later.

Although the former of his wishes had partially concretized when he witnessed Kenobi's pain as he transfixed the imbecile woman he held so dear in the same way he'd transfixed that obnoxious Qui Gon Jinn; the same could not be said for the latter, at least, not after Sidious' intervention, the vanquishing of his brother Savage and the 501st and 212th's subsequent interventions.

However, his malicious actions had been enough to throw Mandalore in a state of lasting turmoil and dangerous instability, for the umpteenth time in its history.

Forced to flee, Maul went into hiding for the second time in his life. This time, however, he found solace in the emotions he'd been able to suck out of Kenobi, while he first tortured and then impaled his... _love_. Yes, because Kenobi could rein in his anger all he wanted, but he couldn't keep a lid on his heart-wrenching desperation and black-as-an-endless-pit sadness while he was made to witness the sadistic end of the Duchess. To Maul, the Jedi's love for the woman, something he'd obviously tried to deny to himself and even to her, was _unmistakable_.

Love was a concept so emotionally and physically foreign to Maul that he was both disgusted and intrigued by it. His way of exploring it was characteristically sick and twisted, even more so because, having lost the bottom half of his body, he was de facto mutilated, and, never having been taught otherwise, couldn't detach pain from pleasure.

Maul derived a strange excitement from replaying the gutting scene in his mind time and time again. He'd snatched the Duchess' portrait from the Palace so that he could build an altar with it and with the darksaber; he enacted all sorts of dark magic rituals around it so that he could feel pleasure. He had developed a real fetish for this sort of game. A game where Satine and Kenobi's sensations were his toys, his foe's explosion of grief his climax.

Unbeknownst to Maul, however, on top of being atrocious, all he was doing was utterly meaningless, for the former Duchess was alive and thriving. Well, perhaps not exactly thriving, but alive nonetheless.

In fact, sensing that his apprentice's apprentice (aka his "Plan B") was in danger, Count Dooku had silently travelled to Mandalore. Using his exquisite Force abilities (honed and refined by decades of experience), he had kept his presence well-hidden, a trick he mastered beautifully. As all hell broke loose on Mandalore, Dooku had found the empty throne room at Sundari's Royal Palace, walking in on a severly injured, dying woman. Her identity immediately clear to him, Dooku understood trying to save her was more than worth a shot, for multiple reasons - political power and the conversion of Kenobi being among them. Therefore, Dooku used the Force to stabilize her, privately appreciating the tenacity with which she clung onto life, and glided inside his designer spaceship, carrying her along.


	3. Discovery

Immediately after landing on Serenno, Count Dooku levitated the unconscious Duchess to his dungeon, mobilitating a team of medical droids to try and save her. It was tantamount to keep this fact from everyone for the time being, especially from Sidious, the very _reason_ he was enacting preemptive measures and backup plans.

The woman's conditions were critical, and chances were that she wouldn't make it, for her pH was already very acidic from the trauma, some of her internal organs badly damaged. Nonetheless, Dooku hoped she would recover, and "help" him carry out his plans. By helping, of course, he meant passively, as his hostage, though Dooku trusted he could as much as convince her of collaborating for his cause. Perhaps, provided with the right incentives and information, she would be enlightened and not oppose stubborn resistance. However, this wouldn't be the case if she turned out to be anything like Kenobi, which was highly likely.

Over the course of the next weeks, Satine had multiple near-encounters with death, always managing to pull it through by a hair's breadth. However, the more time passed, the stabler she became.

As the days went by, Dooku became aware that secretly holding Kryze captive was a move smarter than he'd previously envisaged. On top of being a woman of power, and a tool of influence for his potential ally Obi-Wan Kenobi, the now former Duchess of Mandalore was pregnant with a precious commodity: a Force sensitive human. The fetus (then embryo) had miraculously survived the darksaber's destructive heat, managing to stay put throughout all of Kryze's turbulent recovery, a really good sign of strength and endurance, according to Dooku. This opened up new, interesting scenarios for the Sith: a baby could mean a potential future apprentice, as well as an additional device to manipulate Kenobi into joining him.

It would take Satine two full months to regain consciousness and stay awake, little by little initially, for longer stretches of time subsequently. Her memories slowly coming back at her, eventually she became capable of facing the complicated situation she was in: a mix of heartfelt gratitude, disdain and diffidence towards Dooku; shock, surprise and fear upon waking up to a bulging, _live_ belly.

Satine couldn't exactly say Dooku treated her badly. She was given spacious quarters. From her windows, she could admire Serenno's lush forests. She was never short of food, drink, clothing or medical care. Yet, she had been stripped of her freedom. She did find herself in a golden cage, but this didn't erase the fundamental fact that she was, indeed, in a _cage_. What would be of Mandalore, of Obi-Wan, of the galaxy, of her friends and now, of her child, tormented her on a daily basis. On top of that, one had to consider the subtle psychological pressure Dooku subjected her to. She couldn't deny the Count had manners, but even though he was far from being brutish and uncouth, he didn't miss a chance to try and probe her mind, attempting to gain information about herself, and Obi-Wan. She could never let her guard down.


	4. Reflection

Satine was frequently in pain. What else could she expect, after being impaled? The healing process was not all roses, but she wasn't complaining. After all, she was alive, and this was a privilege per se, given the circumstances.

The first time she'd been able to stand up by herself and move a few steps, more than three months after her arrival on Serenno, she had limped to the long mirror next to the wardrobe and had opened her gown, facing her reflection. She gasped as she witnessed her changed body. Slightly undoing the bandages wrapping her stomach, she saw a blackened, slowly-closing hole. That was the reason her legs still tingled from the loss of nerve sensitivity. That was the reason she was receiving artificial nutrition through a "button" surgically inserted in her duodenum. Water was what she missed the most, so she wetted her mouth and throat several times a day by sucking a sponge drenched in water. However, according to the droids who were in charge of her care, she'd be able to resume ingesting liquids, and possibly even solids, in a few more weeks. She was slowly weaning off her supplemental oxygen, her diaphragm and lungs still damaged, but improving.

And then, a little below the hole, there it was, her rounding belly. Satine touched it, having a hard time believing, and accepting, what she was seeing and feeling. Paradoxically, it was easier to process that Maul had impaled her with the darksaber, than acknowledging that the one time she had finally surrendered to her feelings and had passionate, untamed sex with the Jedi she loved had resulted in a pregnancy. After all, attempts on her life were something she was accustomed to, while she couldn't say the same about entertaining the idea of...motherhood.

And yet, it was happening.

It had been a stressful period. She remembered how, not long before Maul's arrival on Mandalore, she and Obi-Wan had pulled an all nighter making love to each other after an evening loaded with intense emotions and frank, angsty conversations, how the sun had risen far too quickly after that, shedding light on their sweaty, reddened, messy bodies, each dripping with the other's fluids.

Satine liked to think she wasn't completely foolish, so, at least initially, she had equipped Obi-Wan with protection, which proved to be completely useless, as it broke during the act, causing him to come inside her. Never trust Force sensitives with contraception, she'd learned. Obi-Wan had been embarrassed about his inability to "contain" himself, but she was too aroused and unleashed to worry too much about the accident, so she had urged him to keep going on. This being said, they'd ditched protection completely for the following, heated rounds, slipping in a dimension where only the here and now, and the two of them, mattered. It had been memorable, but now, in hindsight, Satine realized she shouldn't really have felt surprise at the very tangible _outcome_ of that night.

She didn't picture herself as a particularly maternal woman: as a girl she had never enjoyed playing with dolls, rather preferring books and confrontational games. She had displayed minimal curiosity whenever a fellow clanswoman gave birth. She seldom showed interest for her younger sister Bo-Katan when they were little (something she deeply regretted). Now, however, she felt a surge of protectiveness towards her baby. Suddenly, keeping the little being safe became a priority. Not even fully formed, and the tiny one had already faced great evil, surviving an attack few people would be able to emerge unscathed from. For that reason, Satine felt all the more attached to it.

What now? What now that she was Dooku's captive? What would be of Mandalore, of her, of Obi-Wan, of the baby?

Panic risked to take over, so Satine decided to take it easy, one single step at a time. For now, she'd focus on herself, on getting better and stronger, and on dealing with Dooku. Only once she'd be in better health, would she think about _escaping_. She would get bored and frustrated, all by herself, but the awareness that she actually wasn't by herself reassured her. Strange. It should've been the opposite! Yet, she realized the idea of having a baby inside was already growing on her.


	5. Haunted dreams

A few months before Order 66

 _He was naked. She was looking at him, and he could detect no shame in her eager eyes. He surprised himself by shedding the thin veils she was dressed with, impatiently but never harshly, and running slightly trembling hands along her body, as she shivered under his touch, seeking confirmation that this was happening for real. He looked into her eyes as he cupped her breasts, weighing them, slightly squeezing them. Her nipples hardened against his palms, and for this reason his manhood jerked upright. She could hardly wait, pushing him to lie on his back while kissing him savagely, leaning herself on him, pressing her body against his. He didn't even attempt resisting her magnetic pull. She kissed his neck, licking his pulse point, expressing her vocal relief as he slid inside her, holding onto her butt cheeks. She was famished for him, grinding her hips against his to have him all inside, mimicking his own movements._

 _Before getting to that point, they were having a conversation. Now, however, words were redundant. They were continuing their talk, using another type of language._

 _His chest heaved as he made small involuntary noises, the woman he had so ardently desired - despite every attempt at dousing his wants with cold rationality - sitting up while riding him, her torso starting to stiffen as she got closer to her peak..._

Obi-Wan woke up feeling lighter than he'd felt in a while. It was as if he'd slept in a bed of perfumed flowers. It took him a moment to recall why that was the case. Then it hit him. A dream. A rarity for those of his kind. However, his ecstasy was short-lived, soon leaving the way to a grief deeper than a pit of Sith. A grief rendered more painful by the sweetness of the memory he'd relived in the dream.

Satine. She was gone. She was gone in the most violent, hateful, unjust, intolerable of ways. And he had failed as a Jedi, unable to prevent it. Most of all, he had failed her, as a man. As the man she trusted above all others. As a chosen confidant. As a lover of unspoken promises. Obi-Wan stood up from his stiff cot, rushing to the sink to splash his eyes with cold water before the tears could take over, relieved that no one else was in the room. It had been weeks, and yet this still haunted him. How could it not?

He had literally let her slip away. In hindsight, he had not moved a finger to prevent it, nor to ease her pain. Or to reassure her. He had given away nothing of his true feelings. He had left her alone, being in no way better than Maul. He had been short-sighted rushing to her aide. Everything about that damned day tormented him.

On a day to day basis, Obi-Wan struggled to cope with his grief. As absurd as it was, he feared meditating, for it would amplify his feelings. Therefore, he gave his all to the battlefield; spending his residual energy trying to hide how wrecked he really was.

Anakin's repressed aggressivity worried him, but somehow his ability to focus on the young one's problems was stunted, powerless as he was face his own problems. He resolved to show the boy his proximity at all times, allowing him to pursue his heart's desires, even when that meant meeting Padme Amidala in "secret". Obi-Wan felt, deep down, that what he was permitting was wrong...but then he remembered where restrictions had led him with regards to Satine's fate. He was experiencing emptiness in a way he'd never imagined possible after having elaborated Qui-Gon's passing. He was heartbroken, struggling to concile his Jedi-ness with the realness of his feelings. He wouldn't wish the same destiny upon anyone, let alone Anakin.


	6. Omens of doom

When Satine began feeling well enough to start planning an escape, her belly had become too large not to restrict her movements, forcing her to rule out running. Another problem she had to contend with was her nutrition. Although now able to eat small bites of food here and there, full meals were still out of the question by a long shot, so artificial formulas were something she had to have available at all times, complicating the logistics of her _plan_.

She was grooming the servicing droids to act in her favor, but could never rush things or skip steps, for Dooku was very much vigilant and receptive. Speaking of whom, she was seeing less and less of him as of late. She could tell the old Count was troubled, haunted, even. Satine had to admit their interactions had turned out to be unexpectedly soft, a lot of the prisoner-captive tension dissipating behind Satine's gratitude and Dooku's concern. Sure, their intentions weren't exactly aligned, yet Satine couldn't help but take the gesture of saving her own life and "caring" for Obi-Wan as a good one, _despite everything_. She knew that he would never, ever release her willingly, she wasn't that naive.

Every week, Dooku would descend to her quarters so that they could have a talk.

The "talks" mostly consisted of him trying to buy her trust and support, with fewer and fewer forceful attempts at mind-tricking her. Perhaps he had understood those tactics would bring him nowhere with her. Or perhaps he was simply allowing himself a semi-normal interaction with a physically weakened woman whom he would regard as a sort of daughter-in-law, as lonely as he was. He used to be a Jedi, after all, a life rich of companionship had been the norm for him, for many years. He had enjoyed closeness with his master first and apprentice later, with Jocasta Nu, with all the people from his past life. Now all he had left were droids, and in the few cases when he wasn't surrounded by machines, his interactions were always dominated by distrust and stressful power games.

Satine had soon come to realize that the so called Sith was very much alone in his selfish, twisted quest for destabilizing the galaxy. She had come to realize that he wasn't driven by greed as much as he was by fear, and this intrigued her in an uneasy kind of manner. Dooku had gradually let a part of his guard down, thinking that by doing so she'd feel comfortable enough to reveal information to him or cooperate, but in reality, all he was doing was disclosing himself to her.

He tried to terrorize her, depicting gloomy prospects for Mandalore if she chose not to offer her help with the conversion of Obi-Wan. By doing that, and much else, he gave away details of Sidious' plans that never in his imagination he would have thought possible revealing.

Satine was slowly starting to understand the deeper workings of a war she had never found necessary to begin with. And the more she understood, the more her fear grew. Her subconscious self opposing what her brain regularly processed from those conversations, Satine nonetheless had reached one terrible conclusion: no one was safe, starting from the Jedi themselves.

One day, seven months after her arrival on Serenno, Satine found Dooku looking darker than usual when the time came for their periodic rendez vous.

"I hope Your Highness has made up her mind. I am afraid there isn't much I can do for you, or for your heir, if you don't join my cause"

"I thought by now you'd understand that my moral high ground doesn't allow me to embrace your cause" Satine had gained enough confidence to speak her mind, although maintaining her stature by keeping a distance. She was tranquil.

Dooku bitterly chuckled.

"The words of an ideologue...pity there's no time for such things in this galaxy. You don't understand. It is not me who's causing all this. If I won't get Kenobi to join my ranks...mark my words: we're doomed. He is doomed. Your child is, too, and greater forces will strip it away from you before you realize it. You are doomed, for what will become of the Republic will see you as its enemy, something dangerous to annihilate, and you will have lost all your support from Mandalore. You already have. They are out there to get you, the sacrifical trophy they all need to attain...catharsis, in their eyes. And I am doomed, too. But you might just give us one chance at changing our fates, Duchess, if only you change your mind"

Satine had gotten used to Dooku's peculiar eloquence, but this time, the amount of information she was processing out of what felt more like the unavoidable outcome of the political situation they were in than simple threats, was daunting.

"What will become of the Republic? What do you mean by that?" Satine narrowed her eyes

"I will tell you another time" and with that he left, under Satine's bewildered expression.

Only thing was, another time never came.


	7. Red pill

Several days went by, but Dooku didn't return.

Satine was starting to believe he never would. She was also starting to believe everything he'd told her, especially from their most recent dialogues, to be true.

A shiver ran up her spine. Her nights - already wrecked by unfathomable nightmare - had become unbearably long, bringing fear and angst along. Satine felt trapped. And not just physically so.

Dooku's inflamed words resonated in her head, never leaving her alone. A new galactic order. Real peace (not that watered down pacifism she pursued - he'd said). A despotic rule of (un)law. Loss of countless sentients' identities in order for this new state of affairs to be fulfilled. And, worst of all: no one would impose this, but it would be the peoples of the galaxy - at the end of a deadly war - to ask for it, be it due to misery or, more often, unawareness.

The process had been unraveling for a long time and, according to Dooku, it could not be stopped.

Through the fog of everything she'd learned from their interactions regarding the political fate of the galaxy, one thing haunted her most of all: the price of blood the new order asked of its scapegoats.

In times of hardship, scapegoats are in "high demand". If Dooku appeared to be ranting or sounded excessively rhetorical at times, she couldn't say the same about the clarity he outlined the "Jedi's role" in the _project_ with. With mixed contempt, dread and fatalistic acceptance, he detailed her their fate. And she was filled with terror, both on a galactic and a _personal_ level.

Then, Dooku's first prophecy (the attempt on his life) had seemingly come true, with him never returning. Satine knew Dooku had no reason - at that point in time where he was building his own exit plan - not to return to Serenno, and to her.

Therefore, she began to prepare herself for the "Apocalypse". While doing so, she feared that, no matter how big her efforts, they wouldn't be enough to save herself, or Obi-Wan. She was dead scared of losing him - one of the few people whom she thought of as close to her. Despite everything, she hadn't doubted his loyalty for a minute. At that point, being heavily pregnant, she wasn't making grand plans, she mostly cared about what she - with her limited means - could do. Everything else would come later, after the baby came and she'd recovered some more.

She was frustrated, and running out of time. Two of the seven droids who regularly visited her had gone missing while trying to tamper with the control panel of her mechanical door. A third one had been destroyed by a security mechanism right under her eyes, as it agreed to help her. She didn't know if her plans to break out would work, and even if they eventually did, she wasn't sure what she should do next. Go to Mandalore seeking Bo-Katan's help, now that the sister showed signs of reconciliation? Dive head first into what she understood to be a priority, that is, the search for Obi-Wan? Try and summon other potential allies from the Neutral Systems?

Then, there was the complicating factor of her still fragile health, coupled with the prospect of an imminent birth. According to the medical droids, she only had a handful of days left. Would she give birth in her prison, there, as a captive? She didn't wish that.

Also, the sensation of impending danger crippled her with fear. She didn't know if who had eliminated Dooku would come look for evidence of his betrayal. Look for _her_.

However, Satine needed not worry too long about her captivity, because one day, suddenly and without any forewarning, the prison door sprang open.


	8. Vibes

_He had wanted to hold her close for a long time. The longest of times. But he daren't._

 _Until now._

 _Little lilac and white flowers were flying all around them. It was near sunset, and they were outside. It was beautiful._

 _She wasn't wearing her headdress, but the white lilies were still there, entwined in her hair. She looked at him with courage. And that was it, that was all he needed to get...closer instead of farther._

 _He wavered, smiling timidly._

 _They'd been discussing war policies. But what was going on between them went much deeper. Who did he think he was fooling? And still, did they even need to pretend? Apparently, their stiffened words would suggest they did. Yet, they didn't. Their hearts were being completely open. What a weird feeling, seeing words assume a completely different meaning than they're conventionally meant to convey. He almost unperceptibly moved towards her._

 _She studied him for a moment, with doe-like eyes. Then she smiled, and welcomed him as he almost crashed into her. Their breathing heavier, they could feel each other's scent. She felt the fabric of his clothes, closing her eyes and inhaling. He did the same. The longer they stayed like that, the more difficult it became to consider doing without each other's heath._

 _Eventually, as the sun was setting, he parted, pain almost hurting his nerves physically. She didn't look surprised, and didn't react limply. He was astounded to see her so...whole. Once again. And he smiled again, for she was pure magic._

 _And she would never leave him. Not wholly, no matter the distance, the obligations, everything. She had found him, and from the first moment, by witnessing the way he gave himself to the galaxy, and then, to her, she'd known they'd be forever connected. She never felt as gorgeous as she did while with him. He recharged her to be a better person, a better leader._

 _There was an unspoken promise between them. They would return to each other. They knew that._

His achy body hit the cold, cold waters of Utapau, and he went down.

Deeper and deeper.

It was getting dark, but he opened an eye, resisting the temptation to let himself sink.

A sunray. He clung onto that and swam to the surface.

Kenobi knew right away the situation wasn't bad. It was worse.

But the sun was still there.


	9. Unfold

Coruscant

General Kenobi ran towards the Temple, knowing that if he'd taken it any slower, it would've been harder to proceed and actually bear the sight of the _slaughter_.

Debris and dust, with dying fires all around, welcomed him. Once live, active brothers and sisters in the Force were now piled in inhumane lumps of flesh and fabric. How could any living creature deserve such a treatment?

It was especially hard to find the slain younglings, and the burning holes glistening through their little, innocent bodies with systematic precision. How could such brutality belong with them? Obi-Wan had grown to be a realistic person, he knew about the pain and harshness of life, but still, the man in him was repulsed by such a deliberately vile act against the children. For a moment, he wondered what kind of beastly darkness one had to be lost in, in order to commit these atrocities...he was sure he'd never met one such abomination in person.

Still, all around lingered a familiar aura.

A terrible sense of foreboding pervaded him, but he would've never admitted that to himself openly.

Not until Yoda showed him the security footage.

Then Obi-Wan's already damaged heart broke, never to be restored again.

Yoda wanted him to confront _him._ He wanted him to confront the slayer. The Sith. The former child whom he'd so clearly failed.

First, the deadly betrayal. Now, _this_.

Despite his sense of duty, Obi-Wan was sure he wouldn't be able to carry out such a dreary task, not even with Yoda instructing him to.

He needed to see clearly through this fog. That's why he decided to go look for Padmé.

Serenno

With the droids' help, after much trying, Satine found her way out of the "prison block" and into Dooku's stronghold. She was set on 1) discovering all she could about Dooku's last whereabouts and 2) finding a transport.

She was making one of the droids - F-39, a repurposed medical droid with astromech features - carry a backpack full of clothes and medical supplies for her. Her belly was heavy and she felt huge, but knew the more she waited, the thinner the chances of finding Obi-Wan alive.

After all, she'd reasoned, if the high-security prison door had sprang open, there ought to be a **reason**. Knowing that Dooku had an unmanageably powerful "partner in affairs" who was likely also at the root of his disappearance, chances were that this **reason** could not have been all too rosy.

The day had just begun. But she was in a rush, for some reason she had a gut feeling she couldn't waste any more time. The following hours were spent feverishly going through hundreds and hundreds of files on Dooku's devices, grappling with secret codes and droids. Satine saved everything she managed to put her hands on on a comm-link, increasingly frustrated at not being able to extract any sound, concrete information she could use right there and then. War reports, weaponry receipts, letters...names that didn't ring any bell to her...haphazard stuff. And then...she found something unexpected under Dooku's desk.

A tracker. It was beeping, a little red lable intermittently pulsating on the little monitor. It read "backup plan". It was in hyperspace, moving towards Coruscant. Satine held her breath, quickly scrolling through the tracker's history. Plenty of Clone Wars battle sites. A lot of open space. Jedi Temple, Jedi Temple...Sundari, Mandalore, on the day of the attack. Satine had no doubts now. It was Obi-Wan.

Dooku had been tracking him! Without wasting time, Satine loaded her stuff on the first functioning spaceship she found in the stronghold's hangar. Not before having de-wiretapped and offlined F-39, though. Droids had been strangely docile and obedient around her, as of late. She suspected it had something to do with her carrying a Force-sensitive baby. Perhaps the little one was transferring some abilities to her.

She was heading to Coruscant. There was no looking back.


	10. Sidious' perspicacity

Sidious sent the newly anointed Darth Vader off to Mustafar, to fulfill his obligations.

He sat on his throne, a frown crossing his wrinkly forehead.

He had instructed Vader - whose loyalty he didn't completely trust - to eliminate everyone who dared interfering with their interests, Obi-Wan Kenobi included.

With a power as overwhelming as Vader's, Sidious had perhaps sinned with an excess of confidence when he'd calculated that his new apprentice would find no match in _any_ situation.

And yet, here he was now, wondering if he'd been wrong.

What if Skywalker's volatile emotions could be used to corrupt his young, disturbed soul, as swiftly and abruptly as they'd been influenced by himself? What if Kenobi suddenly turned up? Would Vader survive his fresh transition, on the very night of his turning?

Sidious realized that, perhaps, the timing wasn't right for Vader to make such a radical step. He would wait for "the fruit to ripen", before running such a risk. It was tantamount for the Kenobi question to be taken care of, _for the time being_.

Therefore, Sidious made a call. A call to the Zygerrian slavers who had suffered tremendous assets loss because of the Jedi intervention. The Republic owed them a slave - a rightfully acquired one at that - and a reunion was long due.

A prominent Zygerrian who was stationed on Coruscant promptly answered the call. Upon seeing who was on the other end of the holo-projection, the creature grimaced.

"Are you going to dump more trouble on us?" he seemed annoyed.

Sidious sneered.

"Not this time. But perhaps you'll be interested in hearing that I have _something_ that belongs to you. You can go retrieve it"

He was interrupted by a fit of chill-inducing cackles.


	11. Sensations

The ride to Coruscant turned out to be a bumpy and uncomfortable one, perhaps as an omen of looming disaster.

Satine was more unwell than she ever remembered feeling on a spaceship, be it for the advanced stage of pregnancy, be it for the aftermath of the impalement. She repressed her desire to slow down or maybe make a stop or two along the way, recognizing the urgency of finding Kenobi, the Jedi. The _endangered species_ , in Dooku's words. Satine hated acting as rashly and blindly as she had, but having no other source to glean information and understanding from, she had no choice left but...to trust the Sith...and her own intuition.

Sooner than expected, the dust-colored spheric shape of Coruscant appeared in the distance. With a lump in her throat, Satine began the descent process. She could't land without being intercepted, but for the time being she determined it wouldn't be a problem: once in the atmosphere, she would fly around following Obi-Wan's track, then she would attempt snatching him from whatever situation he was in - which was likely to be altogether dangerous and insidious - and whisk themselves away from that hellbound Sithhole as soon as possible.

All she wished for was for them to be reunited, and safe.

Was it asking too much? Satine couldn't allow herself to keep her hopes up, for (the very realistic) fear of being disappointed. For all she knew, the little dot on her monitor could've well been...a corpse. A corpse that was being dragged around. Wait...no. Stop this, she told herself. This isn't healthy. Having been raised by Mandalorians, no hypothetical worst case scenario could surpass her imagination.

Soon, she entered the atmosphere. And the search began.

* * *

Obi-Wan was inside his Jedi Starfighter, 500 Republica bound. His intestines were twisting inside of him, as he internally acknowledged the rawness of the tasks that awaited him. Never, not even in his wildest nightmares, would he have imagined to find himself in such a desperately irreversible, gloomy situation. Being a Jedi who had lived and breathed war for much of his life, he had learnt early on to release his fear of dying in a violent, premature way. He was used to ugliness. However, now he realized that nothing, literally _nothing_ could have prepared him for the downward spiral of horrific events that had succeeded one another during the last year. He was baffled, defeated and, worse of all, he wasn't sure he would be able to react. The destabilizing amount of Jedi-directed hate he seemed to encounter as he skillfully scurried across the skyroutes wasn't helping, either. He determined he couldn't be distracted - not if he wanted to survive to _at least_ carry out his duties. He wouldn't deviate until he reached Padme.

Or better, _so_ _he thought_.

A medium-sized, hyperspace-capacity spaceship flew over his head, three or four levels above. Before even getting close, the unusual open space transport had caught his attention, but it was what he felt when the spacecraft approached him that really gave him goosebumps, awakening his inner soul and sensation in a way that even a minute earlier he would have no longer believed possible.

A presence. A familiar one at that. One he believed he would never sense, ever again.

 _Satine._ That was the first, strong thought that instinctually came to his mind, overcoming everything else.

 _Life._ He could picture one for himself, all of a sudden. How fast can things be destroyed. How fast can they change for the better, too. Hope is a feeble silver hair, one to be grabbed by unsuspecting, tired hands. Because even the most destroyed of hearts can hope to recover.

But it was short-lived. Soon, self-doubt inundated his mind. His soul shattered. It couldn't be. How naive of him. So he kept going, he kept going towards the...inevitable demise of everything he had left. Obi-Wan had not dared thinking too much about the specifics of what was to happen, but deep down he knew that it was nothing good. Who was he fooling? Headstrong Padme would never turn her back on her spouse. Not like that. The newly anointed Darth Vader would never be forgiving, nor merciful. Bloodshed, in one way or another, was inevitable at that point. And he knew that. He knew that fully well. He could still...pretend that he could in some way work a miracle and win Anakin back, even proving Yoda wrong. But if he hadn't been able to work any miracles up until now, why should that change right there and then?

What if...he dared following...a potential miracle...instead?

He wasn't expecting it when he saw his hand twist the handle to make a detour. Duty always came first to him, but if things couldn't be turned upside down during this surreal night of absurdity, then he didn't know when they could. So after the mysterious spaceship he went, clinging onto a tiny, faltering, irrational hope, letting his selfish side prevail for once.

* * *

Satine realized she was being followed by her very target. Her heart surged with excitement and relief. She could see his starfighter now. He was alive! He was alive and they still had hope. She motioned to initiate a U-turn and was trying to figure out what to do in order to descend enough so that she could "suck him in" inside her hangar, when the unthinkable happened.

Seemingly popping out of nowhere, a purple and green spaceship approached the Jedi's starfighter...and sucked it in its hangar instead, before speeding up in a crazed rush to exit the stratosphere. Obi-Wan had been abducted, right under her own bewildered eyes.

She couldn't believe it! She felt saddened, frustrated, irritated, desperate, at loss for thoughts...until her reactionary instincts kicked in.

A Mandalorian knows there's no bottom to be hit. The fall is endless. Therefore, she decided to adapt to the situation and pursue Obi-Wan's kidnappers. She knew where they were going, thanks to the still functioning tracker. That, however, didn't make her feel better. Quite the contrary, indeed. Obi-Wan was being brought to...Zygerria.


	12. Zygerrian moon

Satine was inside her ship, floating in space just out of Zygerria's orbit.

She didn't know the planet, although she knew about its business, which was notorious, for _all the wrong reasons_.

She grimaced, visualizing what would likely happen to Obi-Wan in that barbaric hive of tears and sorrow. She was trembling from the shock, attempting to put the pieces together, and quickly at that.

Zygerria...she couldn't wrap her mind around it. Dooku had been right. It was slavery, then? Make the Jedi pay for "their misfits" with hard, forced labor? Until they all succumbed to fatigue and whiplashes? Was this merciless treatment the fair punishment for their having...sacrificed their best and their young to a war that held nothing in common with their belief system? It was shocking and humbling at the same time.

Satine was more determined than ever to pull Obi-Wan out of there, at least. Now that she knew where he had landed, she was quite positive he would be kept alive for a while. At least, she reckoned, long enough for the pain of torture to seep into his hardy veins. Enslavement had bought her more time, what a creepy paradox.

She studied her surrounding environment using the astrocharts of her spaceship's database. There was no way she could infiltrate the slavers' ground alone. She had no real plan, no adequate equipment and, as hard as it was for her to admit it, no weapons for intimidation and self-defense. It was a team job, evidently. She resolved she had no choice left but to...go to Mandalore and ask for support there. Sure enough, someone from her faction would sense the gravity of the galactic-wise situation and make resources available for her...right? She had been Duchess, after all: Mandalore could be in ruins by now, but she would still retain some influence, possibly even more so because of the disaster Death Watch had helped catalyze.

However, one thing prevented her from departing right away: fuel.

Serenno's ship didn't carry enough barrels for an additional parsec, let alone for a ride all the way to Mandalore and back.

Therefore, she decided to land on a nearby moon - one notorious for gambling and slave trade to the locals - to refuel.

Having spent enough time around Jedi, Satine knew the go to place if one wanted to gain understanding about the planet's shady business, was the _seediest pub around_. Moreover, she was physically tired from the bumpiness of space travel; she yearned a break from that. Going exploring was a risk worth running in that case, even at 40 weeks pregnant. This being said, she carefully hid all her hair inside a black bonnet, hid her figure under a concealing greatcoat and applied a dark lipstick and, after having refueled, walked towards The Bloody Claw (the pub), followed by F-39, the droid.

Once inside, Satine immediately regretted having taken that decision. The Bloody Claw was a mess. It was dark, the smell of alcohol, dry blood, fried food and semen lingered all around, invading her nostrils. Most sentients there spoke a dialect she couldn't quite grasp. Prying eyes followed her discreetly yet insistently. She should've known better, but considering how impossibly headstrong she was, this turn of events didn't really surprise her.

Nonetheless, she sat, putting her best tough expression on.

"Hey babe" a Zygerrian male approached her "are you new here? Looking for...club membership?" he breathed in her ear, pressing himself right against her. His light ginger fur appeared greasy and overall disgusting. Satine's heart sunk. She resisted the temptation to swear in Kalevalan as she quickly worked out a strategy to discourage that nasty creature from pursuing her.

Thankfully, she needed not work out anything drastic, for the attention was soon shifted to the pub's door, as a group of three bulky Zygerrians stomped inside, holding a bounded Zygerrian female above their heads.

"Auction time! Auction time!" they shouted in unpolished Galactic Standard, succeeding to silence the poor victim's hisses with their voices.

"Female, 31 standard years, able-bodied. Nice teeth. Fiesty, but nothing a good conditioning can't tame" they sneered.

The captive struggled against them.

Satine didn't have time to feel disgusted. A million alarm bells had gone off in her head right there and then.

"She's charming...how did you procure her?" a potential buyer inquired.

"This is what happens when outsiders mingle with our affairs. We simply get rid of them. Forever" a captor hastily replied.

"I am no outsider, you slimy bastards! I want my family back! You have no right over their freedom...uuurghh!" the victim yelled before being stunned to silence.

"Your family...doesn't exist anymore!"

The captured Zygerrian had Satine's full attention now.

As a red, fat, sweaty, disgusting pimp-type tycoon who went by the name of Azmorigan started negotiating the price with the furry captors, Satine suddenly got a foolish idea. She knelt, quickly programming F-39 to _act_. In the meantime, she extracted a gas mask she'd brought along from the droid's backpack and wore it.

Azmorigan had nearly finalized the purchase, when a blinding, stingy, suffocating, intolerable substance was released, inundating the entire pub. Everybody was coughing and bent in two, those who managed to crawl outside were left unable to see for a while.

Universal pepper spray, hit-and-run class. When the stingy fog cleared up, it was clear to everybody that the Zygerrian female had disappeared. Azmorigan had lost a slave, and was throwing a massive tantrum for that.

Satine, however, wasn't there to witness the tragi-comical scene.

She had long fled the moon, alongside the Zygerrian female, whom she had promptly freed during the mayhem. F-39, her partner in crime, tagged along.


	13. Ire

It was all still, sleek and quiet in that dark corner of space. A lone Star Destroyer floated about, its silhouette giving away cold, eery vibes.

Inside, a morally defeated troop of lookalike men stood in line for a celebratory meal, though the atmosphere was far from festive.

One of these men, clad in blue-sprayed armor and sporting lemon-yellow-sprayed buzzed hair covered his face with a gloved hand, unable to down any of the real food that was being served to him (as opposed to battlefield rations). He felt utterly crippled. Rex looked around, seeing what he normally saw: his Clone brothers. They appeared unchanged, or almost, yet Rex could barely recognize them after Order 66. He was thinking of many things, of his values and of his priorities, obedience being the least of them, paradoxically. He was mourning past and present places, happenings and people. Most of all, he was mourning Fives. Fear for the future - and for his integrity - was his everpresent companion. Rex recognized his responsibilities, though. He was brave, but not daring. Otherwise, he wouldn't have survived. Faith in himself seemed to bring back a spark of hope into him. He would figure out something. It would take time, and learning, but he would.

* * *

Young Lord Vader strolled along the Star Destroyer's long corridor. He was by himself, as he had no desire for company.

His lips pressed together, he was as handsome as he was volatile.

The silence and apparent quietness, though, must not misguide a spectator's senses: Vader was seething, his rage boiling deep inside of him like a bubbling cauldron waiting to explode.

He should've been happy: he had triumphed in every endeavor he'd taken on since accepting the Dark Side. He had a squadron of faithful men alongside him. He controlled whole fleets. He had vanquished his most threatening enemies. He was on his way to gaining even more power. Most importantly, his wife was alive, on the Star Destroyer with him.

He had every reason to be satisfied.

And yet, he decided to embrace those very same reasons to...feed his anger.

Vader had not considered that after achieving so much, and so quickly at that, he would feel so dissatisfied.

He had acted like the master of his own destiny, and now this was driving him mad.

Padme sure was on the very same Star Destroyer as him. But she was locked inside her room, refusing to speak to him. He couldn't look at her in the eye, for he couldn't bear the mix of fear, disgust and contempt she reserved for him. She was alive, but was a captive, and her discontent was gnawing at him. Why wouldn't she understand? How...dare she...criticize his actions? It wasn't supposed to be going like this.

Padme had given birth to healthy twins a few hours earlier, right after getting so worked up with him on Mustafar, but Vader knew he wasn't welcome to visit them. Her anxiety, worry and disappointment mixed with the fatigue of arguing with him had caused her placenta to rupture. Soon thereafter, the twins had been born via emergency C-section, and all were physically well. Not mentally so, though. He found it ironic that he was being perceived as his children's biggest threat. Yet, he knew he couldn't complain, nor even allow private thoughts to occupy his mind for long, because he knew he was being _watched_. He realized this more than ever, and while he wouldn't have cared about it normally, now this awareness was irritating him immensely.

With Sidious' overbearing presence in the picture, he was also realizing how difficult it would be to juggle the slippery slopes that were his relationship to the Sith Lord (whose power he had grossly underestimated), his personal life (which he increasingly felt he had no agency for) and his own ambitions (which were still a blur in his mind).

He didn't appreciate that he sensed heightened fear from his men, the 501st, whenever he approached them.

Perhaps, deep down, he was starting to consider whether Padme was right...wasn't he? No. Definitely not. Too enveloped in darkness, his heart wasn't open to reason and questioning.

For these reasons alone, Vader was a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode.

However, if something was really ticking him off, it was...Obi-Wan Kenobi. Vader was disappointed. He had expected his old master to at least try and contact him. How could he ignore him, it was beyond his understanding. Vader felt his connection through the Force. He knew he was alive. Yet, he hadn't shown up. Didn't he care enough? _He never had_. Who did he think he was, snubbing him? He would pay for his insolence!

Vader clenched a fist, steam almost radiating off him.

He was so angry he could've strangled his old master with his bare hands. He could almost picture him, smoothing his beard in a corner with a slightly sarcastic expression on his face...

"It's not over Obi-Wan! It's not over!"

By having apparently forgotten him, was Obi-Wan succeeding where everyone else had failed? Was he insinuating doubt in the heart of young, unstable Vader?


	14. Calvary

_The heath of her body against his, the scent of her skin entrancing him. He was charmed. The first lights of dawn were splashing on their entwined bodies, painting a luminous picture. It was as if nature was singing all around them. Obi-Wan hadn't felt so liberated in a long, long time._

 _He joyfully looked at the woman who was resting her head in the crook of his neck, holding him as if she didn't wish to be anywhere else in the worlds. His eyes were seeing an enchanting scene, one he would not have dared imagining, let alone hoping for, not even in his wildest dreams. Yet, here he was, freed and unashamed of it. So boundless that he could almost picture himself confessing..._

 _"Satine"_

 _Her head sprang up, her eyes resting their gaze on his face, like colorful, balletic butterflies. He took notice, and it took his breath away._

 _Her voice took slightly longer to follow._

 _"Yes?" she whispered, sensing the sincere emotion in his tone._

"I love you so much" _he thought. But for some reason, his words never left his throat._

 _Come on, tell her - an inner voice encouraged him._

 _She was lovely, cocking her head slightly to study him, so comfortable with him, so comforting to him and to the Force around them...he raised a hand to caress her cheek and the curve of her swan-like neck, wishing that his hands could convey what his voice apparently could not. As his hands brought her pleasure, he couldn't help acknowledging that, on most days, those very hands would only contribute bringing war across the galaxy. He had the logical answer as to why he was embracing the Jedi Order cause. Still, deep down, he couldn't shy away from doubt, and an inner rebellion that was boiling within. Was it all truly necessary? Was the war - especially the way they were fighting it - the best course of action? Was it...too late?_

 _Tell her._

 _She parted her lips slightly, as if hoping that he would say the word._

 _But he didn't._

 _Every ounce of regret he had was soon drowned by her passionate ministrations, never to be unearthed again._

 _Or at least, so he believed._

Every ounce of regret he had experienced and more, were unearthed with a force as soon as Obi-Wan woke up with dirt on his face to a ferocious whiplash, on the wastelands of Zygerria, where he had passed out from fatigue minutes earlier.

"Lazy!" a slaver roared.

He was chained and wore a Force-suppressor around his neck. For reasons yet to be established (he was convinced his capture hadn't occurred by mere chance) his abductors had dumped him on the dusty mines right outside the semi-industrial city of Grebak, expecting him to slave his life away there. They had also made sure to break him as much as possible, having learned from their previous mistakes how to deal with Jedi. They wouldn't kill him though, at least not before he repayed his _debt_ in hard labor. Moreover, he had a feeling it wasn't they who had full decisional power over his fate.

Still shell-shocked from everything that had taken place on that fateful day, Obi-Wan opted to obey orders for the time being, having no energy to fight back.

Outpowered, Obi-Wan had been knocked down and beaten so hard that now he could barely hold himself up on all fours. His ribs were so crushed it hurt to breathe.

He was bruised and bleeding, but his mind was elsewhere, for physical pain was nothing compared to the shortcomings that were gnawing at his conscience. He had let Padme and Anakin down in every way possible. He wondered what would be of them, recognizing he had been wrong at having hesitated to intervene. Guilt was ravaging his very core, yet in no way did he feel he deserved what the Zygerrian slavers were putting him through. His heart had been purged from violence and nihilism too much for him to fall in such self-destructive psychological traps anymore. Satine, he recognized, had played a major role in his "liberation".

He had been having a dream about her, right before the slaver interrupted it by ripping his back apart with that infernal whip of his. It wasn't the first time, either. Since her death, it had happened on several occasions, events which he couldn't prevent, nor forsee. Not that he wanted to: while being reminded of her death hurt him to no end, Obi-Wan realized those dreams were the only means the Force was giving him to let her live on. Reliving past, most intimate interactions with Satine in very vivid dreams was something that was both saving and destroying him. Strange enough, those dreams seemed to physically energize him, safeguarding him from the toils of forced labor and torture. While experiencing them, he had the sensation of traveling through space and time. What was it all about? Why did they keep occurring? Why did they feel so real?

Thinking about her, and about the scenarios that could've been but that never were hurt him too much, especially in a post Order 66 scenario. Now everything from the past felt more futile than ever, everything except for love. Love, the first thing that had perished, under unmeasured pressure.

Oh, Satine. Why couldn't he stop thinking about her?

How foolish of him to go after that chimaeric spaceship, on Coruscant. Perhaps, if he hadn't made that detour, the Zygerrians wouldn't have captured him. With every passing minute, he was increasingly sure that the presence he'd sensed and that he'd recklessly gone after wasn't hers. No, it couldn't be. It was a similar presence, but not the same, he had detected a small - yet significant - difference within it. How deluded he was.


	15. Mid-space

Floating in hyperspace somewhere en route to Mandalore, Satine was getting acquainted with the Zygerrian female she had just freed. Her name was Cressidra, and she was sharing a gruesome story with her rescuer. Considering how outraged and traumatized Cressidra was, she hadn't taken long warming up to Satine, once made sure that the woman had no ulterior motives behind her unwarranted help.

Satine was occupying the pilot seat, F-39 was operating the co-pilot chair all the while keeping an eye on the Zygerrian (in wild space, one could never trust a stranger completely), who was sitting on a rotating stool in the middle.

"Why are you doing this?" Cressidra asked, holding herself tightly, as if seeking a comfort she could no longer have.

There was a faint hint of a shrug on Satine's behalf.

"Why not?" came her quite sincere reply. She was too tired and achy to express herself more expansively, her utter annoyance at the current state of galactic affairs transpiring quite literally from her tone.

Cressidra considered her for a moment, before adding: "Why me?"

Satine sighed. She stood up before sitting back down again, seemingly incapable of finding a comfortable position. The baby was constantly kicking and flipping inside of her, probably agitated by them being in hyperspace, and her back and limbs hurt quite a lot. She needed to lie down so bad, but knew she couldn't. Rest would have to wait.

"It was my intention to evacuate a dear...friend of mine away from the slavers, away from the planet, before it became his tomb. Alas, I couldn't carry this task out by myself. Hence, we are headed to Mandalore, where my allegiance resides, for reinforcements. I couldn't save the one I wanted to save, so...I freed you instead. One small victory, I guess"

Cressidra looked at her in silence, seemingly impressed.

"Tell me: how did you find yourself in that abhorrent situation?" Satine asked.

Cressidra combed long fingers through her dark fur, her eyes suddenly glassy with pain.

"I was just trying to rescue my dear ones myself..." and she burst in tears.

Satine listened to her crying without saying anything. As much as she wished to sympathize with the Zygerrian, her own discomfort and concern were preventing her from being more involved.

"...Zygerria is a terrible place. As of recently, even more so. It is where I hail from, but at times I can hardly recognize Zygerrians, or Zygerrian society, anymore. The misery brought on by the Clone Wars has provided it with plenty of opportunities to unearth the darkest practices of its most shameful past, by reviving and intensifying large-scale slavery, for instance. The galactic political wind that blows is not a good one, either. I am a social worker. My sister was part of an organization which vied for the abolishment of slavery, and, after many years in the field, witnessing the recrudescence of this practice, she sought to enter politics. That move marked her end. She was persecuted and eventually eliminated by public execution...alongside many members of her party. Her husband was enslaved, as it is customary with Zygerrian tradition: the relatives of a public figure found guilty of treason must "give back" to society by giving up their freedom. Aware of this, knowing the government to be after her family, my sister entrusted her daughters to me, right before dying. My two nieces are the reason I was captured. I failed to protect them, when the guards came to claim them. I was captured while approaching the filthy wastelands where they were laboring...and you know the rest. Slavery remains in a legal grey zone by Zygerrian law, so it was three unofficial "enforcers" who proceeded to bring me - a social disrupter - to the moon where I was to be trafficked" Cressidra recounted. She was understandably shaken, so silence ensued.

"I am sorry" Satine whispered.

"And you? How come have you got so many...resources?" Cressidra inquired.

Satine smirked, feeling sarcastic. _Resources_. She wished.

"Let's say that I am into politics like your sister was...and got in trouble for that as well" she didn't feel like disclosing her _true identity_ so soon.

"Whomever it is you were trying to rescue must be important, for you to mobilize yourself in such a dagerous place, in your condition..." Cressidra alluded to her state of pregnancy.

Satine nodded, the Zygerrian's words resonating in her ears.

"Quite so...depending on the viewpoint" she replied, feeling a weight oppressing her chest. The weight of Obi-Wan's uncertain fate.

"I was pregnant too, once" Cressidra admitted.

Satine raised an eyebrow "Really?"

"My cubs didn't survive their first year" Cressidra threw in with resigned acceptance.

"Ow" Satine felt sincerely saddened. How miserable of a life Cressidra seemed to have. During the last weeks, she had been positive to have hitten the bottom of misery, but apparently, this wasn't the case. Her problems drastically shrunk in size when she compared them with the heartache the Zygerrian had to go through. The tension she experienced by hosting a stranger in her spaceship slowly started to dissipate, for she could sense the woman's grief and inherent good intentions.

"That must be terrible" Satine said.

"A typical Zygerrian litter is composed of 3-8 cubs. I had 4. They are born deaf and blind, with a weak immune system and as a result, many don't survive their first months. When mine were born, there unortunately was a typhoid fever epidemic, caused by unsanitary sewerage conditions. Zygerria maintains some of its past splendour, but the economic crisis makes it difficult for the planet to truly progress. Being far from the Core doesn't help. I had to work, so I left them in the care of a wet nurse, who soon fell ill. My cubs followed suit...it was devastating. They were gone within days"

Satine was speechless at how much Cressidra seemed to have internalized tragedy, to the point of making the passing of her cubs sound normal. She squirmed, suddenly anxious.

"So, I gather you're attempting to return to Mandalore? With reinforcements?" Cressidra changed subject, realizing that the atmosphere had become heavy inside the spaceship.

Satine confirmed it, realizing where the conversation was leading.

"Bring me back, too. I want to save my nieces. They're all I've got left" the sinewy Cressidra pleaded with a feline, determined gaze.

They started making plans in that regard, as Satine considered the possible complications arising from contact with Mandalorians. However, she soon realized it was becoming progressively hard to keep her mind focused, her pain increasingly difficult to ignore.

They were halfway through the skyroute, both Obi-Wan and Cressidra's nieces were in dire need of help, but Satine realized they had to make a stop, for she could handle piloting the ship no more. She needed to take a rest.

The spaceship came out of hyperspace in a largely desolated portion of space. Satine put the spacecraft in "sleep mode" with a stabilizing autopilot in place, then walked towards a cot, with F-39 and Cressidra in tow.

She lied on the mattress, feeling nuseous. Her legs and feet were quite swollen, and she was ashen.

"Are you all right?" Cressidra inquired, her ears perking up. Zygerrians were very intuitive. F-39 beeped.

"I believe sleep is all I nee...OH!" Satine couldn't even finish her sentence when she realized that something was wetting the bedsheets beneath her. Her waters had broken. The baby had picked that day, of all days - mid-space, while they were in a rush - to come.


	16. Parallel

"You can't avoid me forever!" Darth Vader yelled while banging his fists against his wife Padme's door.

"If you think you are convincing me to let you in now with your beastly demeanor, think twice!" Padme hissed back.

She had barraged herself in her "quarters" (a bedroom with annexed refresher inside the Star Destroyer, that is) with the twins and R2, using the droid's irreplaceable expertise to boost the security mechanisms of her sliding door, as to give the _monster_ a harder time. She knew that he was holding himself back from using the Force to break in, having perhaps started realizing the _magnitude_ of his own actions. Padme took that as a sign that Anakin was coming back to his senses. Yet, she couldn't allow herself to be lenient towards him: for starters, she was scared of the thing he had become, even more so now that she had her children to protect. Secondly, what her husband had done was, on many levels, inexcusable. She needed time to process, and decide on what stance to take. The thoughts that she was formulating felt so extreme that she was disgusted by them, still she realized she couldn't know whether Anakin would ever be worthy of her forgiveness.

As if sensing her from behind the wall, Vader's aggressiveness mounted: "If you won't let me near _my children_ , then I..."

"You WHAT?" Padme spat, losing it herself "Haven't you caused enough damage already?! I thought you were doing _this_ for us, at least" she sourly pointed out.

Luke and Leia, sensing the distress surrounding them, woke up in a chorus of cries. Padme was resourceful, but right in that moment, she found it hard not to feel suffocating. She had locked herself in a tiny space with two newborns for more than 48 standard hours, and the room was becoming an ever-increasing chaos of balled up clothing and discarded bathroom items. Leia and Luke pooped continually, taking a toll on the aeration systems and hygienic filters of the room. Padme was running short of rations, she was sweaty and overall felt like she needed a hundred things that were out of her reach in that moment. Therefore she felt all the more resentful towards her husband. She wondered how different things would be now, had she chosen Palo or Clovis over Anakin.

Vader was seething, his anger mounting. He was close to exploding, and his deep-buried conscience told him that if he did, it wouldn't be pretty for Padme. With this awareness, he stormed away along the corridor, force-choking a technician he'd found in his path and finding a quiet place to allow his explosive temper to revert back to more reasonable levels. Even yellow-eyed, he knew such behavior was off-limits in front of his family, and for the first time since his dark christening, he felt _ashamed_.

* * *

It was distribution time on the wastelands of Zygerria.

The word that comes to mind when one associates distribution with a site of hard labor, is perhaps wage, or food.

Not on Zygerria, though. Far from it.

On Zygerria, it was distribution of punishments that took place; with each microchipped slave receiving as many whiplashes as seen fit for any reported underperformance on his/her activity tag.

Obi-Wan was positive his bones would soon crumble into heaps of dust. His throat was dry. The skin around his Force-suppressor was raw. Using the heavy spade he'd been handed to dig a hole into the muddy, rocky ground of the mine was pure hell, considering how bruised his hands were: the slavers had stomped on his phalanxes as punishment for falling asleep on the job, likely breaking them.

A pained scream startled him, as he turned his head to witness the punishment being administered to two young, frail-looking Zygerrian girls. For the second time in his life, he felt the utter powerlessness in the face of injustice threathening his balance. He was on the verge of anger, his emotions increasingly difficult to manage. An inner storm was brewing. To ease it, Obi-Wan made an effort to remember the details of the dream that had cost him the bones of his hands. He didn't know why he kept having all these vivid dreams about Satine, and, truth be told, at that point he didn't bother feeling guilty about them happening any longer.

That particular dream - the last of a series that had begun more or less around the time of her passing, with increasing frequency - had started out in the _usual fashion_ : a snippet of the long night of passion they had spent tangled with one another, spiced up by small variations in the plot that had never happened in real life. Then, the setting had changed, and he had found himself running aimlessly in a dark forest...until he'd heard Satine screaming. She was in pain, he could feel everything she felt in such a realistic way that he hadn't thought much of it when the Zygerrian had crushed the bones in his hands, mistaking them for the woman's sensations.

He frowned, deep in thought. He had experienced a physical and spiritual connection with Satine during the dream, there was no doubt about that: first when they were making love (the healing, reinvigorating part for him) and subsequently a pain-based bond where he could feel everything that she was going through. He had often lambasted himself for not having shown more closeness to her during her final moments, due to his weakness; perhaps the dreams were a way to experience the agony she had endured, perhaps they were a means to grant him peace.

And yet, something wasn't adding up. Instinctively, he was led to believe that the type of pain that was afflicting her was, indeed, of a more normal kind. Something connected with the cycle of life, rather than with the event of death. Something like childbirth pain. He was a man, he couldn't know it with certitude, yet the Force suggested him that that could be the case.

Thinking of Satine giving birth hurt him now that the dream was over, both because of what was happening to her "child", Mandalore, and because - as much as he didn't have the courage to admit it openly - her passing had precluded her from ever bearing a child of hers. He remembered watching over her while she slept, weeks before they became intimate, and wondering with a corner of his mind what the children of such magnificient woman would look like, if they ever came to existence. He was understanding that it would be highly unlikely for her to have any -given her position - and would become even more so with each passing year, and wasn't sorry for that, as long as she was happy. Still, he hoped that, if she ever decided to withdraw from her high-risk position in the future, nothing would prevent her from reproducing, if she ever expressed a wish to do so with the most supportive and loving of partners. Of course, he never factored himself in the picture, recognizing his own Jedi-ness as an obstacle to the realization of such serene picture, among other things. At the same time, the more time they spent together, the more Obi-Wan's subconscious convinced him that she wouldn't deem anyone other than himself worthy of the most intimate spheres of her persona.

Obi-Wan recognized such convoluted conjectures would bring him nowhere. The idea of childbirth and pain reminded him of another constant pain and sizzling dilemma in his miserable new life: the fate of Padme. He wondered if her baby/ies had survived, what would be of them. Unlike Satine's hypothetical ones, the "Skydala" ones very real - he thought.

As he slaved away in the mines, fatigue suddenly became more real.


	17. The fruit of labor

During her teenage years, when something upset her, Satine would run to the white rocky path near her Kalevala house and take a plunge in a sapphire-blue deep pond. The cool water would restore her physically, as well as give her clarity of thought.

Now Satine would give a arm and a leg to take a dip in that pond. Instead, she was going through the pains of labor on a not-so-large spaceship, with one quirky droid assisting her and one complete stranger witnessing the inevitable dismantlement of the collected character she outwardly portrayed.

She was uncomfortable and felt depleted of essential minerals, with a headache and a stiff neck. Psychologically, she willed herself to maintain her calm and push forward, yet she saw herself progressing towards a completely different direction, one that was full of demons and fears.

Most of all, she found it very hard to deal with the excruciating pain that crippled her. Truth be told, the contractions were bad, but they felt natural and were tolerable. What she couldn't really cope with was, instead, the pain originating from her _scar._

Yes. The darksaber hole that Maul had burnt through her torso, the one injury that had nearly taken her life, that had kept her bedridden and unable-bodied for weeks on end and the consequences thereof she was still contending with, now risked to burst open again or - at least - so she perceived. The pain originated from the nerves, from the still-damaged tissues, making her feel like her back would split open or like her abdomen would rupture any moment. She dragged herself around the spaceship with a permanent grimace on her face, moaning in pain against her will.

"Bzzt pzz bzzzz?" F-39 asked, approaching her.

"No, please, don't give me painkillers. I don't want to be medicated while _it_ happens" Satine breathed, her brow totally sweaty.

Cressidra, who was half hiding out of respect for the hospitable stranger's privacy, half attempting to make herself useful, approached her while spreading a few clean towels on the floor.

"You are suffering. Are you sure about your decision?"

Satine bit the flesh inside her cheek as she crouched herself in preparation for another wave of pain.

"Yes, I am sure. If I allow the droid to medicate me, I won't be able to feel my body anymore, and I can't afford reduced sensibility now that we are in this... _clownish situation!_ " she roared, Cressidra taking a step back.

Twelve hours had passed since the beginning of labor. Satine imposed herself not to focus her mind on all the hypothetical what ifs, in a desperate attempt to preserve her sanity, a feat hard enough as it was now that she was completely alone. No family for support. No cozy home where to welcome the new little one. And especially, no Obi-Wan. She briefly wondered about the pain that he himself must be feeling in that moment at the hands of the Zygerrians, before the negativity that stemmed from their being helpless and trapped in their respective situations became too much for her to endure. She collapsed on the floor, twisting, a total slave of her contractions.

Four more hours went by, with Satine somehow emerging from them still conscious and relatively lucid. It was apparent that her body - which was still struggling to recover from the darksaber burn - was having a really hard time delivering the baby. According to F-39's readings, several of her organs were working way too hard, with a couple being on the verge of shutting down. At one point, she needed extra oxygen, which F-39 promptly administered. Satine was seriously tempted to surrender, notheless she imposed herself not to. Years of Mandalorian politics had forged her to be resilient and tough.

Cressidra did what she could by handing Satine wet towels the woman cooled her forehead with. She didn't say much, though she tried to lighten the atmosphere with a pun or two. She told a few anectodes from her sister's labor she had also assisted, with Satine barely listening. At times, though, Cressidra just withdrew into the shadows, when reminded of the loss of her own cubs. F-39 proved to be a steady, more calming presence, and a medical aid Satine couldn't have done without.

"Zttt bzt" F-39 buzzed.

"What? I am dilated enough to...start pushing?" Satine heard herself say, barely believing what she was hearing.

"Bzzt!"

"All right...so be it!"

* * *

Twenty minutes later, full of disbelief, Satine caught her baby the moment it came out of her. The physical exhaustion that was taking over her was nothing compared to the awe that holding her own child - at last - elicited.

Cressidra purred next to F-39.

Finally, the former Duchess of Mandalore could look into the eyes of the person she had carried for over 9 months, her only companion during her period of captivity, her greatest reminder of the tasks that were ahead. Despite the confusion and tiredness, Satine smiled, feeling an instant renewal of the bond that had already formed while gestating.

The baby was kinda bluish and barely weeping, perhaps tired out by a long labor, so Satine instantly summoned F-39 for help. The droid did what it could to heal and clean them up. Not much later, with Cressidra's assistance, Satine got on her feet. She was very hungry, but had to make do with what was available: dry, unsatisfactory ration bars, a few sips of water and artificial nutrition through her surgically inserted button when her stomach capacity "hit the ceiling". Satine felt frustrated, in tears, literally. She really craved a nuna leg, or something equally nutritious. She felt she owed good health to her child, something she couldn't attain right now. Wrapping her otherwise naked baby with her own fluttery gown, she limped her way towards a bunk bed, climbing on it so that she could admire the starry, dark universe from the porthole. That sight would definitely be the balm her nerves needed. The bunk bed would be their "nest" for the time being. She had informed Cressidra and F-39 that they would resume their journey after she had rested, giving enough time to the baby to prove that it was stable.

* * *

Feeling really battered, now finally lodged on the top bunk bed, Satine felt safe enough to release the breath she'd been holding since her escape from Serenno had started.

Her whole body was achy, as if a million pins had trespassed her at once, but she didn't care about it now that her daughter was safe and seemingly healthy next to her. Yes, the baby was a girl. She had taken notice of it right away, just as she had immediately found a resemblance to her father on her delicate baby features. She had tufts of what looked like reddish hair on her perfectly round head. Tufts Satine ran her fingers through, completely in love with her.

At 8 pounds 2 ounces, the baby didn't look skinny, and now was a healthy shade of pink, which relieved Satine. She knew her body would never revert to its original self after the impalement, but felt triumphant that the daughter she'd had with her beloved Jedi was whole, instead.

"What should I name you?" Satine wondered, feeling a tiny fist close itself around her index finger.

Damn hormones. The joy that she derived from living that moment firsthand was overshadowed by feelings of loss and extreme sadness. It was deeply sad that Obi-Wan couldn't be there to witness those moments as well. She knew him intimately enough to have the certitude that he would have loved to, therefore his absence hurt her even more. Then she thought of Mandalore - which was bleeding, of her family - which had been thorn to shreds by conflict and rivalry, and found herself wishing for something entirely different for her precious little gift. Something she wasn't sure she would ever be able to accomplish for her, nonetheless.

"Mara" Satine said, feeling sad.

Then she took notice of the stars glistening outside, in the darkness. They were little dots of luminous hope, who existed despite - and possibly because of - the cold desolation surrounding them. She then directed her attention to her newborn daughter once again. She reminded her of one of those bright stars, whose energy one had to put faith upon, from such a distance, like a precious gem. Like a jade in the rough rock.

"Jade" she added, stroking the baby as she squirmed lightly.

"Mara Jade" she repeated, quite positive that this improvised name would be the definitive one.


	18. Looming Mandalore

_She was running in a dark field, something grainy and sticky attaching itself to her bare feet. She didn't know where she was headed, she only knew she had to keep going. She couldn't see anything, and sound reached her ears in muffled, undiscernable auditory clusters._

 _When the ground disappeared from under her feet, she didn't notice it. Everything was happening so fast, and yet so slowly. She was left wondering for long but few seconds what would await her beneath. She readied herself for the impact of a hard ground, the fiery voracity of hot boiling lava or the cold swirling abyss of a bottomless sea. But no such things ever came._

 _Instead, she felt herself floating, as if surrounded by a soft semi liquid substance. A pair of familiar arms wrapped themselves around her, sustaining her, going with the flow alongside her. She wanted to apologize - for what, she did not know with certainty. Perhaps for a lack of clarity or inaction on her part - but he prevented her from doing it. She could perceive the sorrow he kept buried in his heart - but it mattered less and less, as they drifted._

 _"Satine"_

She woke up, covered in cold sweat. Obi-Wan. He had felt so real, in her dream, through the...Force, maybe? He couldn't wait anymore.

* * *

Satine realized that she really needed to be home, and the spaceship they were on would never amount to one; home was where the heart was, and she was on a mission to get reunited with it.

Therefore, despite definitely needing more time to recover, she resolved to get on her feet and get the mission going.

"F-39, reinstate the coordinates. We're leaving"

The baby, who had been very mellow up until that moment, became irritated as soon as they entered hyperspace. For some reason, it appeared to always agitate her, even while still inside the belly. Satine rocked her gently in her arm while sitting at the co-pilot chair, feeling ill-suited to cater to her daughter's needs. How in the name of Mandalore did one take proper care of a newborn? Instinctively, she roughly knew what to do, still, she wondered if the love she felt for her would be _enough_. There was no one she could turn to to ask for advice, no female relative or friend, no one and nothing, except for a few scattered memories and her common sense.

Cressidra seemed to perceive her insecurity, so she sat on a stool next to her, purring.

"How are you?"

"I am afraid I wouldn't know what to answer"

"It will get better"

Satine bit her lip, throwing a look at her daughter. Better. Yes, they deserved better. But now she would have to act carefully, if she wanted things to go her way.

Mandalore fast-approaching, Satine decided - with the realization of what such thing could imply one garners only when close enough to the event itself - to contact _her sister_. Having been shown signs of reconciliation and having no other available resource at the moment, she imagined that summoning Bo-Katan was worth a try. Satine, however, knew Mandalorians all too well to feel completely at ease. She knew about their alliances, how strong ties were once forged and how unbreakable their moral code - especially with respect to one another - was. What she didn't know, though, was whom her sister was now involved with. It was a vital piece of information that could either make or break...everything.

Bo-Katan answered promptly, abruptly, wearing the wronged expression she used to wear all-too-often as a kid. Upon seeing Satine right in front of her, her eyes and posture changed immediately. Satine could tell, even through the blurry blue image, that she was having a hard time.

"I...how? I never thought I would see this day" Bo-Katan cawed. She sounded sincere.

"It is good to see you again, Bo"


	19. Silence hurts

Bo-Katan was troubled, and not just for a single reason. She had just finished conversing with the Duchess, the sister she'd believed dead, like her fellow countrymen.

Ever since speaking with Satine, Bo-Katan had felt like she was choking. That's how you feel when you're stuck between desperately wanting to help a wronged, long-antagonized, formidably "Lazarus-like" sister for the sake of reconciliation, and pleasing your precariously-complacent new allies. Allies who, for the matter, served quite the central strategic position in the reconquest of occupied Mandalore; on an axis potentially opposite to her sister's worlview.

Immediately before Satine's alleged "passing", Bo-Katan had found herself one step closer to reevaluating her own definition of "warfare" in favor of a less despotic approach than Pre Vizsla would have supported. A sort of common ground where to begin conceiving the new Mandalore - that would inevitably come to be - next to her sister, something entirely different from either Death Watch's bloody approach and the New Mandalorians' self-imposed, restrictive discipline. After her failed attempt at saving her sister from prison, she had seen her dream vaporize. Unable to carry on herself with the plan, she had sought help elsewhere. Help she deemed essential, a lesser evil than the ongoing state of affairs on Mandalore, but nonetheless a device she would've rather done without. What now that Satine was back? Would things change? Satine needed help and shelter, her months-long imprisonment having drained everything - with the exception of willpower - out of her, apparently. She had only provided a brief, secretive and reasonably cautious explanation through their comm-link conversation, but she had made clear that she would've appreciated "martial support" for a rather urgent operation. Herein lied the problem. Satine had no troops marching alongside her, no warriors at her command. There was no chance she'd earn her allies' respect. As much as Bo-Katan longed for a long-repressed freedom to rejoice at having a second chance to make amends with her sister, Mandalore was an absoute priority. If Mandalore's survival required bloodshed, Mandalore would get it, no matter the individual price to pay.

Bo-Katan became queasy with uneasiness, yet she proceeded informing the stronghold of the imminent "visit". _  
_

* * *

The occupants of the spaceship had reached the lush, green moon of Kalevala where Bo-Katan was awaiting them, and were starting the landing operations.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the cockpit, making them feel as if an invisible cold wind had broken into the spacecraft and frozen them on the spot, as everybody had a good reason to worry about the hours to come. No one quite like Satine, though. Her anxiety at the moment remained unmatched. For the first time since the beginning of her rocambolesque adventure, she was starting to weight in all the variables of the situation she was willingly walking into. And it scared her. Whereas a few hours earlier, the adrenaline rush and other sanity-saving physiological strategies had numbed her senses enough to make her feel optimistic about the plan; now the raw harshness of reality, accentuated by the physical proximity of their desination, burdened her like a load of lead would a packhorse.

Cressidra looked solemn, but, Satine could tell, really didn't have a clue. She gulped, suddenly feeling the responsible for the Zygerrian's well-being, as well.

"Cressidra" Satine said out loud after a brief reflection.

The Zygerrian's feline reflexes immediately responded to being called by name.

"You must know meeting with my sister's stronghold holds potential danger. You are aware these affairs are mine to attend, and as I don't wish dragging you into something that doesn't concern you, I wanted you to realize that you are still on time to hop inside an escape pod and stealthily land elsewhere" the Zygerrian represented an adult sentient's companionship she wasn't keen on renouncing, but Satine knew she had to face reality, and too many deaths weighed on her conscience, already.

"These affairs aren't solely yours to deal with: I have my nieces to rescue, who are trapped in a Zygerrian labor camp. If I don't fight for them, nobody else will. For this reason alone, facing Mandalorians is a risk worth running".

Satine nodded, slightly furrowing her brow. What she most despised at the moment was her sense of impotence.

F-39 took charge of the landing operations. As they got closer to the surface of the moon, a signal was received inviting them to park the spaceship on the stronghold's docks - near the rendezvous location.

Satine, however, had other plans. She realized the stronghold was located on an islet in the middle of a dark lake, surrounded by thick woods. Cold air appeared to whistle all around, and even though she couldn't feel it, Satine could imagine it all too well, a chill-inducing sensation seeping into her bones.

"I have a bad feeling about this" she murmured. Cressidra and F-39 worriedly turned to look at her, as she quickly made up her mind. Her baby girl, fresh as a rose bud on her lap, stirred lightly in her sleep, making Satine's intestines twist with a mix of soul-touching tenderness and unmeasured dread.

"F-39, land on the shore. The bushy scrubs will hide the spaceship from view"

And landed concealedly, they did. It was a basic precaution worth taking, all things considered.

Having decided that they would use an escape pod to reach the stronghold on the islet, Satine and Cressidra got themselves busy unloading the ship. As they arranged everything on the ground, a few feet into the forest, Satine began realizing a painful truth that she dared not linger too much on, for fear that it would deter her from completing her assignment: she and Mara Jade would have to part ways. She had grossly underestimated the task of leaving a newborn behind. Psychologically, it destroyed her, it felt abominable, it was like going against nature. And yet, Satine rationalized that _any harm_ coming her baby's way would destroy her even more. She, the "treasonous" former Duchess, showing up with a daughter and with no army nor weapons would be tantamount to offering the little one up for abduction, should these "allies" turn out to be the thugs her sister never feared surrounding herself with. Moreover, the risk of having her _shameful_ Jedi paternity disclosed far outweighted the danger of leaving hours-old Mara Jade alone on the brink of a dark forest swarming with dangerous creatures.

A silent tear rolling down her cheek, she carefully laid the baby in a wheeled metal basket, padding her with the blanket she'd found on the spaceship. Fearing it would be too cold for her outside, she undid her own coat, notwithstanding the cold weather, and placed it on top of her. A hard expression was plastered on her usually serene face, now.

"F-39, you will stay here until we return" _If_ we return, she should've rather said. For the time being, she refused to entertain that possibility, since Mara Jade's survival fully depended on her.

"Cressidra, are you ready?"

"Yes, but... isn't the cub coming along?" she was a bit taken aback.

Satine squeezed her eyes close for an infinite second.

"I don't trust them enough with my daughter's life"

* * *

The trip to the stronghold seemed both neverending and far too quick. The lake was cold, silent and quiet.

Rehearsing possible case scenarios in her head, Satine found no peace, while simultaneously willing herself to act more coolly.

Cressidra was grim, her eyes a slit, seemingly accepting of any fate ahead.

They reached the islet's shore as the dimmed lights of early sunset began painting their picture on the water surface. They were immediately reached by a pair of armored guards and escorted inside. Everything was so solemn.

Satine, her "sixth sense" still sharpened from her pregnancy with a Force-sensitive child, was overly aware of everything. The more feelings of impending doom danced around her, the more steadfast she became. When she reached the main hall, where her reception was apparently set to occur, she was inundated with refreshed fortitude, and the kind of calm only the wise can experience. Her state of cool was only momentarily interrupted when she took in the sight of Bo-Katan, her sister.

Her helmet removed, surrounded by three wary, muscular men in armor and full combat gear, Bo-Katan appeared stiff, as someone who is forced to act a certain way against her will would. Her expression almost impenetrable, her eyes nonetheless betrayed strong emotions... and yes, her trademark weakness. The one Satine had grown accustomed to knowing. Deep inside, Bo-Katan felt deprived of a long-due face-to-face moment with her sister. She felt violated. Still, she would've never admitted it.

Opposite to her, Satine stood unarmed, yet glowing with leonine resolve. Years went by, settings changed, yet dynamics stayed the same. Bitterness took over Bo-Katan. She didn't say a word as her counterparts recognized and began verbally attacking Satine. She was frozen. Her failure at having paved the way for a diplomatic and productive encounter gnawed at her, yet she was too selfish to let go of her now privileged spot among Mandalore's rogue armed forces.

Satine handled the attacks skilfully, as usual, attempting to strike a deal with the Mandos. She needed a spaceship and some armed backup for a rescue operation on a Zygerrian labor field, apparently. The fiery Zygerrian female she'd brought hissed alongside her, attempting to make her point through, only succeeding in worsening the situation. In return, Satine was offering know-how for the reconquest of Mandalore. Bo-Katan was tempted to make her voice heard, was curious, she had an impulse to reconnect... and yet she stayed silent, suffocating everything, choosing the easy damned path.

"Who has no honor has no place among us" thundered a warrior as Satine pityingly looked at him.

These men would never get Satine. Allowing her a hearing had been pointless, if not foolish. Bo-Katan regretted not having arranged a private meeting instead, but now it was too late.

Threats escalated quickly. In a short time, it became clear that the warriors would only grant Satine a possibility if she defeated all of them in combat. Bo-Katan threw her sister a look. Only eight months earlier, she'd been on the verge of death. Fighting in such a bloody manner went against her principles. She just couldn't overlook these facts.

"Satine Kryze has no political power, as she is standing here before us. She came with no army, nor desire to vanquish us. Let her and her escort be free to go"

Satine crossed looks with her. Her gaze was so intense, disappointed and reproaching that Bo-Katan felt her throat tighten. Still, she said nothing.

The warriors protested with Bo-Katan. To them, having the New Mandalorian Duchess go without a chance for exacting revenge was undesirable. However, they reluctantly agreed to Bo-Katan's conditions, recognizing Satine's "pariah" state as enough of a price paid.

The mission having been a near-utter-failure, Satine and Cressidra made their way back to the floating pod. The sun was now red and almost gone behind the tree tops, which stood out black and pointy. Red as the blood of a beloved Jedi meeting with the unforgiving arrows of enemies, Satine grimly thought. As hurt and embittered as Bo-Katan's botched reception had made her, she was more than glad she could walk back to her daughter on her own two feet. She would work out something different for her Ben, and Cressidra's nieces.

Or so she thought.

* * *

Kaak Rekigg was a burly, hot blooded former Death Watch sympathizer.

According to Kaak, a treasonous, non-Code-abiding Duchess, a Jedi whore, deserved no special treatment, no matter the circumstances.

Kryze had been soft, perhaps reminded of Clan blood ties with the former Duchess. But the only family that truly matters to Mandalorians is the "found" one, Kaak thought.

Hence, he would take it upon himself to _settle the score_ with that woman.

Just as a near broken-hearted Bo-Katan was retreating into the stronghold, Satine and Cressida's pod having reached the mid-lake mark, Kaak Rekigg fired a torpedo at the floating device.

It happened quickly. There was a blast, followed by fire and combustion in the middle of the lake, as the pod crumpled itself into an incinirated, unrecognizable, sinking form.

Bo-Katan turned around as Kaak's cackles filled her ears. Her eyes widened, and she felt like dying.

"NO!"

* * *

In the back of her mind, Satine had known something of the like could happen. Having been raised by Clan Kryze, worst-case scenarios were always a possibility in her book, even when she would've absolutely done without, like in this case.

However, when the torpedo hit the pod, she couldn't help a sense of absolute loss washing over her. She couldn't believe her sister would do this, behind her back. And for the time being, she wouldn't, for this behavior didn't add up. Still, it didn't make it hurt any less.

Driven by unmatched survival instincts, she swiftly dived into the lake, dodging blazing scraps of metal as they fell all around her, like projectiles.

Cressidra, by nature avoidant of water, hadn't made it. She took fire alongside the escape pod, a shapeless form sinking shortly thereafter in the all-encompassing dark water.

Satine felt desperation flowing into her turgid veins. She screamed, before reminding herself of the dire situation she was in. Nobody would and should hear her. She was alone.

 _Mara Jade_.

Her daughter was everything she could think of as she desperately fought to keep on floating, as she moved her ever-tiring legs and arms to reach the shore.

Right there and then the sun disappeared completely, plunging her into a darkness deeper than a Sith's heart.

Giving up would have been all too easy. She was breathless, burning, grief was weighting her down... but she wasn't by herself in the galaxy anymore. Mara Jade needed her. Obi-Wan needed her. She couldn't just give up and sink like that. As paradoxical as it may sound, she decided to block all - very concrete - worries from her mind. No guilt, no fear. As she swam, she filled her mind with trance-inducing, reassuring images. That night, alone in the middle of the dark lake, Satine Kryze reaffirmed her willingness to take on the new challenges she faced in a post-democratic galaxy.

Her physical strength, however, was abandoning her. The task of reaching the all-too-far shore was exhausting. The cold water made her feel like she could pass out any moment, coupled with her sore muscles, which were on fire. She was swallowing water as she took in big mouthfuls of air. She wasn't even sure she was swimming in the right direction.

"I... can't... give up!"


	20. Liquid hope

"Are you thirsty? Are YOU THIRSTY?" the Zygerrian slaver shouted atop a small mountain of dirt, rocks and garbage overlooking the pit where way too many slaves were grouped, begging for water after one day of deliberate "dehydration torture".

Obi-Wan wasn't sure he would be able to last much longer. He was on the brink of an abyss. He could take the surrounding injustices no more. The situation he was in was either humiliating or would lead to him acting "selfishly" by forgetting the Code's tenets. Either way, it was the profanation of everything a Jedi should be. He shortly wondered _who_ would be harmed in the galaxy if he allowed himself to flip out and die in an inevitable confrontation with Zygerrians. It wasn't like _Anakin_ could realistically turn, was it? The damage he'd inflicted was too great already, even in terms of a Force-oriented worldview, Obi-Wan reasoned, feeling more tempted to act up by the minute. He'd attempted studying his surroundings, but the slaves were so heavily guarded that there appeared to be no possible way out in sight.

"DRINK, THEN!" the sadistic slaver threw a bucket of ice water on top of the miserable wretches. They were startled by the paralyzing coldness as they were hit by it, desperate at seeing all that liquid they needed be absorbed by the ground and attempting to suck whatever humidity was squeezable out of their filthy, drenched clothes.

Obi-Wan clenched his jaw, hating everything about what he was made witness. A frail-looking captive girl, a Zygerrian herself, seemed particularly desperate about her inability of getting any of the water she was seeing. Besides, her rags were wet and making her shiver. His better side having gotten the upper hand, the Jedi walked towards the sobbing girl.

"Are you thirsty?" he asked, his hoarse voice sounding weird to his own ears.

The girl looked up at him, incredulous that anyone would offer her help, and slowly nodded.

"All right, I'll try catching some water for you" he said in his best reassuring tone. He was proud of his defiance towards the _slavers_.

As the sadistic Zygerrian threw another bucket of water on the captives, Obi-Wan used his physical prowess, shaped by years of training and battling with swords, to catch some by using his cupped hands, which were still sore from the fractures he'd sustained. He promptly offered it to the girl, who lapped at the small amount as if there were no tomorrow.

Driven by an inexplicable oppositional urge, Obi-Wan looked the Zygerrian captor who was administering the water torture right into the eye. No amount of beatings would deter him from being his true self, Obi-Wan's mind was set on this.

Snickering savagely, the slaver, who tolerated no toes out of line, used his obvious advantage to pour a whole bucketful of ice cold water right on top of Obi-Wan's head.

Obi-Wan had imagined it would happen, and was planning on not to let any weakness transpire, to reinforce his defiance. However, as soon as the water hit his skull, he collapsed on the ground, blacking out, convulsing for a short few moments.

As the slaver cackled and he regained consciousness, he was left more stunned than ever before. He had seen... no, he had _felt_ Satine. Drowning in ice cold water. It had been more than a vision... definitely more concrete than that. Unable to explain this eerily realistic experience, he let himself collapse back on the ground, utterly shocked, with eyes wide open. The captives stepped on him as they frantically tried to hold any water, but he barely noticed.

* * *

Satine kept on swimming until the water became too shallow; at which point she sprang on all fours, crawling to the shore until she collapsed on its murky sands, coughing and spitting water and phlegm and desperately attempting to catch her breath. She was a total wreck, whatever remnant of physical strength she had left instantly dissipating. Her muscles felt as if they'd been put in a grinder, her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest, she was shaking uncontrollably... but she had made it. She had survived yet another vile attempt on her life. As she regained her breath, she pressed herself against the ground, closing her eyes shut, trying to ward off traumatic emotions.

* * *

Saying Bo-Katan was fuming would be an understatement. As she scanned the lake with her macrobinoculars, in search of her sister, she huffed. After some long moments, she retreated in the stronghold, followed by a few faithful ones.

Believing these hicks would prove themselves useful for her Mandalorian plans of reconquest and reconstruction had been a _grave mistake_.

Shooting her unarmed sister behind her back. Bo-Katan could simply not tolerate such an insult.

She stormed into the hall, blaster at ready.

"KAAK!" she thundered as the thug she'd summoned turned to face her, earning a punch square in his stomach which left him breathless.

"You deserved it. You know what you don't deserve, instead? My trust"

In mere minutes, all hell broke loose on the islet as opposing factions of warriors fought each other, forsaking any "civilized" settlement they'd agreed on just a few days earlier.

* * *

Bombs and ammos glowed in the distance like fireworks. Such a lugubrious fair-like display.

Satine, now finally back on her own two legs, was still dripping and out of breath, not even attempting to repress her outbursts of indignation, kicking lumps of leaves and bark in the darkness. But she didn't care. She was alone. Alone, with Cressidra gone. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks, anger and grief rising within her. Her initial shock gone, images of what had just taken place were now mercilessly assaulting her.

Slipping into autopilot, she reached the impromptu "campsite" where F-39 was guarding the baby and few possessions, next to the spaceship.

She experienced instant relief as soon as she was reunited with Mara Jade. Finally. She was starting to understand the power of this parent-child connection thing, now. She talked to her, clutching her tiny warm weight against her body, then proceeding to change into a dry blouse, feeling clumsy at not having done that right away. Mara Jade hadn't cried for that. She rarely did. She was such a good baby, perhaps because aware of her mother's awkwardness, Satine thought.

Still shaking from the huge release of adrenaline, Satine resisted her urge to take a rest and dived right into the dark forest trail, followed by F-39, whose compass gave them direction. She wished to distance themselves from the islet, fearing the rogue Mandos might track their spaceship and find them. She instructed F-39 to guide them to a sanctuary shelter, remembering a few sparsely populated settlements on that Kalevalan moon. She soon realized, thanks to the droid's maps, that reaching the nearest of them would take all night, if not longer. She was exhausted, but terror and survival instincts allowed her to carry on, as she braved her way through the dark forest. But if Satine could foolishly ignore her own needs, pretending they weren't there, she simply couldn't do the same with her child's.

After about one hour, Mara Jade started whimpering. After a few more minutes of ongoing unrest, Satine took it as a sign that she was done being moved around for the night. Therefore, she found the hollow base of a tree, behind a bush not far from the trail, and began setting up an improvised bed to rest for the night. She had gained extraordinary knowledge of camping in hollow trees during her year on the run with the Jedi who stole her heart. Once made sure that they would be warm, she instructed F-39 to stay on guard, then entered the hollow trunk and lied on her side, pulling the blanket up over her shoulders and adjusting a coverlet under herself. She gulped some water down and ate a couple of ration bars, for survival.

The night was so deep that the only sounds she could hear were the hooting of a convor and Mara Jade's soft breaths next to her. Far from everywhere and everyone. At least she had made sure they'd lost themselves enough into nowhere so as to be far from the open fire, as well. She wondered if the attack on her life had anything to do with the ongoing clashes back at the stronghold, Bo-Katan filling her thoughts for a moment.

She tried falling asleep, but found out she couldn't. No wonder. Fear, grief and anger were clouding her mind, giving her no respite. Not to mention the fatigue and physical pain she was in. She held onto the coverlet tightly, trying to release her tumultuous emotions. Before she realized it, she was crying. Oh, those post partum hormonal swings. They sure weren't doing her any favors, now, added to the mix of everything that was taking place.

Sensing her turmoil, Mara Jade started wailing, prompting Satine to hold her closer. Was she cold? Was she hungry? Was she uncomfortable? Satine assumed that, if there were some women out there who would recognize their children's needs right away, she definitely wasn't one of them. For her, and Mara Jade, it was a two-sided learning process. "Have patience with me, ad'ika" she told her. Eventually, she got distracted while tending to her needs and was able to fall asleep without being plagued by any additional anxiety.


	21. Discoveries

Lord Vader paced the shiny black corridor during what was turning out to be yet another sleepless night.

Tormented, he couldn't find peace, yet the Darkness within him granted him endless reserves of vigor and physical strength. Couple a blurry, haunted mind with that, and the result was bound to be _destructive_.

Padme wouldn't cave, neither would Sidious. The forces battling to win over his will unsettled him, as he recognized something he never thought he would have to contend with: the Sith Lord and _his wife_ de facto occupied the same position on his list of priorities. No matter what he fabricated to convince himself otherwise, his actions and mental processes spoke louder than words of self-reassurance.

 _"Sidious has played you so subtly so as to make his values and expectations yours"_ a voice in his brain told him. A voice he tried to shake off, without much success.

 **Oh.** How hurtful. No, no, no it... couldn't be! It was him who had wanted everything to go the way it had... it was him who slayed the Jedi... it was him who loved Padme... **oh.**

Vader yelled, sending a couple of servicing droids running in all directions and prompting a terrified clone trooper to lock himself inside the closest closet. The fear of the new him was slowly consolidating among his men.

A slight twinge of regret biting back at him, Vader caught a glimpse of his reflection on the shiny metal wall. He was tall, more handsome than ever, powerful and strong. And yet, he felt like he was rotting, inside.

Moreover, something familiar was amiss. Obi-Wan's presence. Vader itched to have him there, next to him, where he rightfully belonged. Though if his craving was due to a need for violent confrontation, or to a selfish desire to be rescued from himself, Vader couldn't fully know.

* * *

Still shivering from the bucketful of ice cold water, Obi-Wan resumed digging with his spade as soon as the electro-whip began hissing. Hours and hours of pointless labor and undeserved misery spared no one, younglings included.

A ruthless slaver maliciously threw a tiny piece of stale bread at two enslaved Zygerrians who had been fasting for days as a form of punishment, then walked away.

In the span of few seconds, the men were at each other's throats, hitting, biting, scratching, kicking and wrestling just to reach that filthy piece of bread. A crowd of slaves circled them, shouting, cheering them on or imploring them to stop. Each and every one of them was miserable, no matter the motivation behind their shouts.

Sensing danger, "professionally deformed" Obi-Wan, who had been a Jedi protector for a lifetime, didn't think twice about separating them, using the staff of his spade. He did that so swiftly and apparently effortlessly that the two disputants barely noticed anyone touching them. Dumbfounded, finding themself on the ground, they looked up at him, as did the incredulous crowd.

Now Kenobi had everyone's attention.

"If you kill each other over a squabble, _they_ win" he attempted, picking up the stale, filthy bread and giving a piece each.

Slaves were being stripped of everything, their dignity first and foremost. It wasn't unheard of in such dire situations to see desperate people turn against each other.

"How did you do it?" a togruta from the crowd inquired somewhat aggressively.

"Do what?" Obi-Wan feigned surprise using his best acting skills, a twinge of fear pervading him.

"Separate them"

"Oh" Obi-Wan absent-mindedly shrugged "I've done it many times"

He attempted leaving the scene and crawling back to his digging spot, but was prevented from doing so by wide-eyed, venom-hearted tortured prisoners.

"I have only ever seen _one category_ of individuals move as you did"

"Come think of it, _I have seen your face somewhere_ "

"Everywhere! It was all over the HoloNet!"

"You Jedi scum!"

"It's _all your fault_ we're here now!"

"You deserve to be stoned!"

"Death by stoning!"

Before he realized it, Obi-Wan was circled. The prisoners collected soiled stones from the ground and threw them at him. He attempted protecting himself, but didn't even try that hard, because the situation was surreal, and the weight of injustice was crushing him. He was both unfeeling and ultra aware at the same time.

Hopeless victims of abuse and torture raged over their Jedi scapegoat, the one who in good faith attempted helping them, the one who, like them, had been stripped of everything, as their tyrants and persecutors looked on and grinned, gloating over the effectiveness of their "training".

They would only intervene at the last minute, as Sidious had expressly asked to keep the Jedi alive for _future purposes_.

It was a great small-scale metaphor of what was taking place in the galaxy.

* * *

After spending a night in the hollow tree, Satine, with the baby and F-39, made her way to the closest shelter in the span of miles: a two-story droid storage shed on the fringes of the forest. They reached it after a morning's walk. It wasn't much, but it would have to make do.

Inside, Satine found lots of dust, rusty haphazard droid parts and a number of assault weapons which looked old but potentially functioning.

She was so tired that she completely forwent the ground floor and climbed the few metal steps to the "living space", where she found a refresher and a near bare room with a burner and cupboard for _gihaal_ storage opposite to a thin mat on the floor. She opened the windows and threw buckefuls of water on the floor to remove the dust and dirt, then, after laying out her few possessions, she literally collapsed on the thin mat, her eyelids closing without her even noticing. She was exhausted.

When she woke up, it was dark outside. The shed was cold, so she lit the burner hoping that it would generate some heat, warming herself a mug of water. She had anticipated a hot shower to relieve her sore body, but there was no such thing as running hot water in there. She desperately needed to recover from the stresses of the past few days. First, the birth, then the fancy little nighttime swim. She could do with some quiet time, even if she was in a rush to reach her Ben.

F-39 buzzed quietly, keeping a dim light on as she arranged blankets around her and the baby, trying to find a decently restful position.

"Keep watch, F-39" she told the droid.

She was uncomfortable, but she could be sure her daughter wasn't, as she contentedly slept in the crook of her arm. There were _so many_ things she would have to work out the next day.


	22. Pretend

_Kenobi closed the door of the Duchess' private office with a soft, if slightly reluctant gesture of his trained hand. He could've withdrawn, but he soon found out he couldn't. His eyes were glued to hers, pulled by her insurmontable magnetic orbs, and he could barely formulate sensical thoughts as he moved steps forward, towards her. He moved towards his inescapable fate, like a devoted subject who's also rebellious at heart._

 _It hadn't been long since the Rako Hardeen ordeal. He still felt pain, and sorrow, at having deceived her. He had expected her to react harshly, thinking he would deserve anything she accused him of being or doing. Perhaps, deep down, he had also_ hoped _she would._ _But she hadn't._

 _She had... become more direct and less hesitating as the result of an "awakening", instead. She sure liked playing with fire. His fire. Come think of it, Kenobi wasn't that surprised. They - particularly she - had suppressed_ a part _of her emotions for too long, just like he had avoided acting on them_. _And he was dead scared, now._

 _Or maybe not anymore._

 _Satine was sitting at her imposing desk. She didn't stand up, but was visibly more upright than ever. Pale as always, a light blush colored her cheeks, already. She was about to ask, but Kenobi preceded her._

 _"...I am not on the battlefield today, no"_

 _"Weren't you supposed to be?"_

 _"I... no... I mean_ yes _, but..."_

 _With a corner of his eye, as he stuttered, fighting against the sudden weakness that was seemingly taking over him, he noticed her leaning her forehead against a propped up hand, the hint of a smirk on her otherwise serious mouth, the curve of her lips rendered more dramatic by her lipstick._

 _"Obi-Wan" as she pronounced his name, his attention became wholly hers, once again, immediately making his mouth shut._

 _"Let's pretend for once that you were supposed to be exactly where you_ are _" she appeared serious, but he detected the slightest teasing connotations to her tone of voice._

 _"P-pretend?" he stuttered, starting to tremble, aware how exposed he was, how much his physiological reactions weren't helping._

 _"It was never my intention to pretend" he finally whispered, steading himself._

 _S_ _atine leapt onto the one small opening he had inadvertently offered._

 _"Really? Isn't pretending what Jedi do at their absolute best?" she kept pushing the envelope, arching an eyebrow and standing up to face him. She was wearing heels so they were almost at the same level._

 _Obi-Wan swallowed. Hard._

 _"I would beg to differ, but I will swallow the pride the certitude of my teachings allows me and say... yes... it is true. We spend our life trying to become one with the Force, attuning our feelings to its flow, rising above the temporary and the material. But in truth, all we're doing is pretending, pretending, pretending..."_

 _"It is all a pretense we're putting out there for the world to see. The Jedi can't claim monopoly over this" Satine looked down, shook her head once, then stood still._ _"I understand, Obi-Wan" she reassured, sounding older. With that cold reassurance, any flame of hope - hope for meaningful interactions, and maybe even true love - risked to be extinguished. "Things have always been this way. They always will"._

 _Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes, almost in pain. When he opened them again, his expression was changed. It was deep and entranced, whereas it had been undecisive and conflicted a moment earlier._

 _"No, it's not true" when he realized his mouth had moved, it was too late to go back in any way, which was every way possible, his soul knew without his mind fully rationalizing it._

 _"What isn't?" Satine seemed to oppose "resistance", having perhaps realized the dangers of being locked in her office with that man, of all people, in that moment._

 _Obi-Wan moved a slow step forward, without breaking eye contact. He took her hand in his, cradled it endearingly, then kissed it._

 _"This isn't"_

 _Satine arched her back suffocating a gasp in her throat. Fearful and afraid, Kenobi increased the distance between them just a little, so as to make her comfortable again._

 _"Nothing of what you see from me is pretense. I have been trying. Hard. I have. I have had to. But I can't. I can't pretend when you're around. You make me fail at it. I denied it, but now, after everything that has happened, I wonder what would be the point of... continuing to_ pretend _that I am pretending when I am around you._

 _Satine was still stiff. Obi-Wan strangely didn't feel the embarrassement he had anticipated, though. He felt lighter, like a feather._

 _"All right, Duchess. I'll... just go now" he whispered softly, as she showed no signs of progress. Leaving was the most caring and honorable thing he could do for her._

 _As he was about to leave, she stopped him, by tugging at his arm. Her touch betrayed a certain urgency._

 _"No"_

 _He turned expectantly._

 _"You know what else isn't pretense?" her voice trembled._

 _Obi-Wan moved his lips, but no sound came out of them._

 _"This isn't" she started stroking his beard, as he soaked in the pure adoration she watched his face with. Being touched provoked an unanticipated startle from him. After having had tension rule over their mostly guarded interactions for so long, this came as a shower of pure light and goodness. A shower he wasn't sure he'd ever want to end._

 _She went from stroking his beard to touching his neck as he timidly started playing with some loose strands of her hair._

 _"And this isn't either" she breathed out before doing the unthinkable by embracing him more intimately than she'd ever done._

 _He held her back, then, taking her face in his hands, he brought himself even closer to her._

 _And they kissed._

* * *

Floating somewhere in the Inner Rim, on the Star Destroyer

Sidious was intrigued by a disturbance in the Force he had just recently perceived, somewhere close to the center of the Mandalore Sector. Disputes and fights were ongoing there, which was never a bad thing, considering how useful these were to question the status quo and allow room for "novelty" in the form of Imperial tentacles, so to speak.

But it wasn't all. He suspected there was something much subtler, yet potentially exponentially more destabilizing, going on there. Something that had, despite his careful efforts, escaped his notice thus far. Playing the Dooku card had come with its risks, after all. There was still time to _fix mistakes_ , though, for the purpose of which he promptly sent a reliable probe droid investigating.

"Go and tell me what you see"

He licked his lips, experiencing a mix of anger and anticipatory, sickly pleasure at being able to shape lives, define destinies and dictate futures on yet another occasion.

By the same token, considering the potential circumstances, Sidious recognized the importance of speeding things up on Zygerria.

He realized it was time to test his impetuous apprentice's loyalty by raising expectations to a whole new level, something that he predicted would sail smoothly thanks to the _safe environment_ he had created.

So he summoned Vader.


	23. Imminent departures

Kalevala Moon

Recovery and meditation became the focus of the next 2 days for Satine. As she regained her strength as best as she could, she also perfectioned her plan. She knew she wouldn't fully rest until she carried out her "Jedi rescue mission", but was also perfectly aware that she couldn't simply venture out after the stresses of the previous couple of days.

She slept and napped for an indefinite amount of time, her daughter never leaving her side, while F-39 administered remedies as it saw fit.

Foreseeing the moment they would have to part ways - for a painful second time in her short existence - Satine decided she wouldn't deprive her tiny daughter, nor _herself,_ of the warmth of her body, of the reassurance of her touch. Having the baby with her at all times proved to be extremely therapeutic, also. She couldn't control the future, but the same couldn't be said for the present, at least. She truly wished for Mara Jade to know how loved she was. The thought of something happening to her was unbearable.

For that reason, and that reason alone, Satine had decided that Mara Jade wouldn't get anywhere near Zygerria. This complicated things considerably, as leaving the baby behind meant she would necessarily have to leave F-39 behind as well, resulting in her attempting a very dangerous mission alone, debilitated, outnumbered and outskilled.

Without planning out her moves smartly and cunningly, she knew she had no real chance of succeeding.

With tears in her eyes, Satine programmed F-39 to contact Korkie Kryze (the location of whom was currently unknown to her) in case she didn't return in three days' time. In case Korkie didn't answer, the droid would contact a trustworthy Clan Kryze middle aged cousin. It was them who would then take her _orphaned_ newborn daughter under their wing, if she never were to come back.

As much as she hated having her daughter spend her first few days of life inside that cold, soulless, badly equipped shed, she knew they had no other option left at the moment, so she tried her best to make the place more comfortable and welcoming, with the help of her industrious droid. She used leaves and tree branches to insulate the windows, a barrel of steaming water to humidify the room, her own clean clothes to swaddle the baby and blankets to provide for a soft, warm pallet.

Once downstairs, she and F-39 began going through every piece of equipment, every old droid part they could find. Figuratively holding her nose, she selected a large but handy machine-blaster, a tiny deactivator, a net containing a handful of grenade bombs, two sheathed knives made of _beskar_ and... an armor. These objects made her gag, but she couldn't risk putting the whole plan at stake because of her... aversion. If she was embarking on this insane rescue mission, she would need to embark on this insane rescue mission for real. Satine had sworn on the day of her coronation that she would never wear an armor ever again. That her people would never see her in one. Now, however, she found herself abandoning that resolution. Times had changed and she was a Duchess no more, yet this action still carried additional weight for her.

"All this and much more to set Ben free" she told herself as she began testing the rusty weapons she hoped she wouldn't have to use and trying out ammunitions. This was the only instance she physically separated herself from Mara Jade. Truth be told, blasters and knives were just a tiny portion of her plan. One she needed to figure out regardless, not to find herself unprepared, should things go real awry real quick. The potential what-if scenarios were giving her waking-hours nightmares, but just by looking at her daughter she found the strength to carry on.

Physically speaking, she felt quite battered and relatively out of shape, but all seen and considered, it could've been much worse. Every few hours, she performed some light stretching execises to distend her muscles. She was running out of rations, one additional factor that made her despise the isolated shed they were camped out in. She still supplemented her food intake with artificial nutrition, of course, courtesy of Maul.

Mara Jade, on her hand, looked pink and perfect. She was so tranquil that it pained Satine to acknowledge that, perhaps, the little one already had to learn to be resilient, under a certain point of view. Satine used gauze to diaper her, but realized she would have to put the layers of thin fabric underneath her body, instead of wrapping them around her, so that F-39 could change the "bedding" every few hours while she was gone. She selected a number of sterile needleless syringes, slowly managed to fill them with milk in the span of two days, then tasked F-39 with their storage, instructing the droid to give the baby one to suckle every time she cried, hoping that her daughter wouldn't starve.

The last night before her departure, Satine couldn't find peace for hours. She kept looking at her daughter, holding her little hands, apologizing to her for what she was about to do, telling her how much she loved her.

"Everything will get better, I... _promise"_ she then finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Zygerria

Kenobi's eyes fluttered open early, with the first lights of dawn. Earlier than the slavers' electrowhips, even.

Saying he was hurting would be an understatement. Cuts, bruises and broken bones were plaguing him everywhere. He was filthy with dirt, dust, sweat and blood. He had been beaten more than once.

And yet he was serene, strangely. They could trod upon him all they wanted, they would never make him lose his dignity, nor the spark of the Force that kept his soul alive, despite everything. Speaking of which... he had been dreaming, again. Of course, as it had always been the case since his arrival on Zygerria, Satine was the subject of his dreams. Reassuring, protective and warm, as usual. This time she had felt so real that he was sure that, had he extended an arm while sleeping, he would have touched her.

Obi-Wan would have generally dismissed his impressions as illusions from the Force, but now he was so unwell that he dared following his insticts, considering that maybe, somewhere in the galaxy, Satine - or her essence - still existed.

* * *

Star Destroyer, open space

As Vader walked uncertain steps towards his _Sith Master_ 's chamber, he worked hard to suppress a grimace on his face. He was reluctant to move forward, his state of mind having more to do with his own attitude than with anything else. It wasn't that he was as afraid of Sidious as he was of _himself_.

However, driven by curiosity, duty or perhaps even fate, Vader force-pushed the sliding door open, anticipating Palpatine's move, hence depriving his master of such subtle manifestation of control he never delayed exerting over each and everyone of his subjects.

"You have summoned me, my Master" he said bitterly.

"Ah, Lord Vader" Sidious welcomed, his yellow eyes shining "It has come to my attention that your wife hasn't taken the news of your turning all too well"

"What has my wife got to do with anything?" Vader warily inquired, soliciting a grin from Sidious.

"My dear boy, I sense trouble within you. As much as both you and I expected it would take Padme some time warming up to the new state of affairs, we all know, deep down, that _something else_ is responsible for cooling the sentiment down between the two of you, indeed" he suggested, sounding as persuasive as ever.

Vader's better part knew that he shouldn't have allowed the old Sith to manipulate him, but his insecurities kicked in, suffocating any good intention.

" ...she is terrified of me"

"That's because you're after the Jedi"

"I have killed younglings!" he roared.

"You have done more than that"

"What could be more upsetting to her than me having KILLED YOUNGLINGS?! She won't let me anywhere near my kids! I did this... for her... for them... _too"_

Vader was seething, much to Sidious' satisfaction.

"She doesn't listen to you, does she? It's as if she has made up her mind already"

"She is headstrong. Her mind is made up"

"So is her heart" Sidious hinted.

"How... _what do you mean?"_

Sidious didn't pronounce an additional word, he simply showed Vader footage from a holo-video recorded a few weeks earlier. Of his wife and Obi-Wan hugging in her house. Of them talking, as confidants. Obi-Wan was holding her hands, concern written all over his face. He appeared involved. And Padme was more vocal than she'd ever been with him in a long time.

Vader shook his head "This... how..."

"They have been fornicating behind your back. Are you sure both your twins are yours?"

"No, Obi-Wan would never..."

"Losing the Duchess of Mandalore must have been hard on him. Perhaps he found the perfect opportunity to fill this void, just as you, the committed warrior that you are, were leaving an ever growing one in Padme's life... all because you were busy doing the Jedi's bidding. This is how they repay you..."

Vader released a soul-wrenching scream of hatred and frustration.

"I HATE HIM! This is why... _he_ didn't show up... ! It is all a ploy... to get her"

Sidious sneered.

"Thankfully for you, the solution might be at hand. My Zygerrian contacts have notified me of Kenobi's capture, whom they intercepted as he tried to organize an insurrection, with the help of Padme's powerful friends. He is being held captive on Zygerria, right now. Perhaps a _healthy confrontation_ is all you need to clear the waters between the two of you..."

Sidious didn't even need to finish his sentence: Vader had already stormed off along the corridor, set on reaching his TIE fighter.

A crooked smile appeared on the evil man's face.


	24. Bastille

_**Finally, after a long hiatus, a new chapter is up. Bear with me, I am trying to achieve some stuff and life is busy. A special greeting to all you faithful readers. I dedicate this chapter to Hzleys87 (whose kind review was left unaddressed for too long).**_

* * *

 _Zygerria_

Before sunrise, Obi-Wan woke up, shivering from the cold and shaking from built-up fatigue and pain. He noticed the Zygerrian guards were setting up something that looked suspiciously like gallows down in the valley, right next to where they forced slaves into digging holes in the ground. Whatever the slavers had in mind, it sure didn't bode well for them.

Obi-Wan blinked, then looked at the rock formations all around him, inhaling invigorating cold air as he replayed his most recent dream in his head. Satine had felt so close tonight. She was tranquil and reassuring, stroking his face and taking his hands in hers as she implicitly promised that she would stick by him, always. She brushed off his guilt-ridden, apologetic words without fail, her gaping darksaber hole ablaze and visible through a long baby-blue dress. He grimaced, attempting to heal it, but Satine stopped his hand, shaking her head. He was trembling. "Martyrdom" he heard himself say, with infinite sadness. Satine shook her head: "Prosperity" she countered, kissing him awake on the eyelids.

After this, Obi-Wan slowly came back to his senses, opening his eyes to the grim, unbearable reality of suffering all around him, a stark contrast to what he'd just experienced. He looked at the slaves who were asleep, or better yet, knocked up, and then he looked at the newly installed gallows. To a Jedi, that sight was _intolerable_. He realized he couldn't stand any of it anymore. He realized he felt doped, also. Doped by Satine's spirit. A very dangerous combo. He sprung upright, only to realize how achy he was. A pained sound escaped his throat, catching him by surprise.

Were it not for insistent Duchess-centered dreams, sleep would become yet another chore. He'd had enough of _everything_ Kadavo had to offer. As if waking up to tears and bidding the day farewell to laments weren't enough, the captive Jedi also had to be confronted with the prisoners' induced despondency on a hourly basis. Those who slaved away alongside him were hopeless, broken people whose only solace rested in the prospect of an ever-imminent death, one that would inevitably bring peace unto their troubled bodies and souls. He felt he could no longer ignore the fact that it was his duty to help liberate them.

There were, however, exceptions. Hardy men and women who would never bow to their captors. People who still had something worth fighting for, who would rather die slaying enemies, than die begging on their knees. For this reason, Kenobi made the most insane decision of the year that morning, one that brought on nostalgia of his Padawan experience. _You wish_ , he told himself, as he dragged his feet towards the most fiesty, sulphurous and reactive of the prisoners, sentients whose raw courage he had witnessed more than once in the past days. Filthy with reddish dirt from the coppery soil, ragged and closely approaching the definition of savage, Obi-Wan crossed natural rock corridors to reach them.

As he expected, the surly bunch, who slept all huddled up together like a wolfpack, perked their necks at his arrival, their senses heightened.

 _Good -_ he thought, unleashed.

"It's time to make a choice" he solemnly stated, picking a long heavy spade up from the ground.

Coughing and spitting phlegm, the prisoners threw a couple of pebbles at him.

"Yeah, it's either shut up or be silenced!" one of them barked.

"Well, not exactly what I had in mind... we either die for _their_ entertainment..." he pointed at the gallows, furrowing his brow.

"Or we die for our freedom" he put a hand on his hip, glancing around and savoring the sour irony of it all.

"How?" the burly bunch sounded more accomodating now that they'd taken notice of the Zygerrians bustling about the valley, setting up the stage for hangings.

"Lucky for you, I think we have the answer. The Zygerrians control us from that fortress up there" Obi-Wan pointed at the tiny, old citadel peeking from behind a few rocks and mounds of dirt and soil. His military knowledge proved to be priceless, under those circumstances.

"It's where they organize themselves, it's where they receive orders, store weapons and outline plans to beat us into submission, all the while reaping the fruits of our free labor. We must conquer it" he added, realizing he ought to exploit the general feeling of discontent to gain traction. He was convinced he wasn't exactly cut for such up front populist leader roles, but what choice did he have? Action was now or never.

The reactive slaves, on their part, had much to discuss. They sure put their dignity above all else, and Obi-Wan had been right to predict that the gruesome morning sight of what was to come would stir up their conscience, detaching it from the last bit of inhibitory fear, once and for all.

He himself felt readier than ever. He was beat-up and force-suppressed, but he came to accept that the price of inaction would be far higher than incurring a (likely) bloodbath. Nobody would rescue him if he didn't attempt doing it himself, not now that the Jedi were vanquished, anyways. Things were only bound to get worse in any case, but he could make a difference by affirming his free will, awakening that of unfortunate fellow slaves as a consequence of his actions, or waiting in submission for death to arrive. Obi-Wan chose the former. In the name of Satine, who had paid first-hand for his hesitation _and_ in the name of Anakin, the child-slave, whose life lessons he had learned far too late, he would do everything in his power to uplift the weak and the oppressed all around him. Their pain reminded him of Satine's last moments every day. A strange sense of peace pervaded him, allowing him to forget his achy bones.

 _"Is this why you keep appearing in my dreams, Satine? Is this what you want me to do? Liberate these people?"_ He knew she'd approve of his plan, having sacrificed the best years of life herself to prevent countless Mandalorians from becoming victims of preventable civil wars, but he also knew that first and foremost she'd encourage him to live to his fullest, unapologetic potential. Something that he was about to do, without turning back, even if it meant he wouldn't live to see another day.

He addressed his companions: "It seems like you're in need of an assault plan. Lucky for you, I happen to have _a little bit of experience_ in this field" he dropped the hint, almost smirking.

His proposal was met by hoarse cheers and growls.

* * *

 _Star Destroyer_

Padme was inside her cell, attempting to cradle two fussy newborns at once as she tried to evaluate whether to exit exploring or not. Everything was silent, but could she really trust appearances? Eventually, the wear and tear of being stuck in the same tiny room for days had the upper hand over caution, as she asked R2 to unlock the sliding door.

She peeked outside, leaning her back against the cold steely wall, having left the twins inside for good measure. Right as she began studying the corridor of the Star Destroyer, fully intentioned on finding as much as a hint for a way out, the dark silhouette of her husband appeared storming in her field of vision, a murderous expression on his otherwise handsome face.

Her intestines twisting, Padme reasoned that it sure felt strange calling that _thing_ her husband, as she blinked hard, as if hoping that by doing so old Anakin would finally materialize in front of her. But if she hoped her eyes could be tricking her, her ears surely couldn't be lying.

"YOU BETRAYED ME!" Vader venomously spat, cornering her menacingly.

Padme was shocked, but not really surprised, all seen and considered.

"Anakin..." she attempted, opting to try the diplomatic route. After nearly a week of living in little more than a cupboard with two babies and a C-section wound, she was, after all, tired of all that escalating nonsense.

All Anakin did, though, was lifting her up like a whole ham and releasing her inside her room, making her wince in fear. The twins, sensing it, woke up screaming. As she had suspected, not even her status as a family member would be enough to shield her from his unreliable temper.

"Why are you doing this, now?!" her voice must've come out really weird, but it only had the effect of angering her fallen husband even further.

"You two conspired behind my back" he seethed, a sneer transfiguring his face.

"What are you talking about!?" Padme's eyes darted in every direction. She was truly scared, now, the Luke and Leia's cries only amplifying her dread.

"You know perfectly well what I am talking about! I've seen the way you look at him, with my own two eyes!"

" _Him_ who?!" Padme sounded desperate "Anakin... your eyes aren't _your eyes_ anymore..." she added, staring into the serpentine yellow orbs.

Sensing sincere confusion within her, Anakin paused for a moment, a flash of reason and humanity back in his gaze. Padme noticed that, the sliver of hope she dared not hoping for, and moved a tentative step forward "Whatever it is you're accusing me of doing... you're wrong, Anakin".

Vader's hesitation was short lived though, his bloodthirsty resolve setting in.

"I will deal with you later" he threatened, stepping back in the corridor and moving a hand to lock Padme in, effectively imprisoning her.

"Don't do this, Anakin! Don't you think about your children?"

"Why don't you ask Obi-Wan to come rescue you, now?" Vader spat manically. He then rushed across the corridor before waiting for an answer, turning a corner in a haste to reach his new TIE fighter.

Her plans for an escape vanishing, Padme fell on her knees, sobbing and attempting to interpret Anakin's behavior. Why was he after Obi-Wan, now? Considering the way he had effortlessly killed all those younglings and adults at the Temple, Padme feared for her friend's life.

Unbeknownst to her, though, her sincere astonishment had managed to spark a seed of doubt within her husband's blackened heart.

* * *

 _Mandalore System_

Leaving the old droid shed had been much harder than anticipated.

Every time Satine attempted getting out the door, believing everything to be ready and in place, Mara Jade woke up crying and needing her, as if sensing that she would be left alone. This had inevitably delayed the former Duchess' schedule. Satine, on her part, didn't have it in her to walk out while her tiny daughter was in such distraugt state. The decision of undertaking the dangerous rescue mission was already crushing her as it was, the bare minimum she could do was at least making sure that Mara Jade would be content and asleep when she... _well,_ left her.

Hence, Satine took it slow, cradling her baby to sleep while speaking Mando'a to her, holding her against her skin until she closed her eyelids, relishing those moments, as short-lived as they were. Entrusting her care to F-39, Satine wrapped the newborn with the clothes she'd worn the previous day, hoping that they'd convey closeness.

When she did, eventually, exit the shed, it was mid-morning, she was wearing the _beskar'gam_ , carrying weapons in a backpack and doing her best to stop tears from rolling down her cheeks.

Daylight made the surrounding environment appear more welcoming. Windswept trees and chirping birds were in stark contrast with what she expected to see on Zygerria. That Force-forsaken place.

Reaching Dooku's spaceship took the remainder of the morning and half of the afternoon. She wondered how many times Mara Jade would wake up in just that initial period of time, trying not to linger on the sensations the little one must be going through. She was thankful the droid shed was far enough from the spaceship parking site so as not to attract any undesired Mando visitors, hopefully. As she walked across the thick forest, all by herself, she thought of quitting a couple of times, on the verge of panic.

But she carried on, allowing the surrounding nature to give her strength, trying to feel the Force as she did while pregnant, attempting to only see the big picture so as to forget her immediate fear.

It took unmeasured faith and focus to believe that her plan would work out. The first step, she reckoned as she valiantly climbed on the spaceship, was to believe in it herself. Feeling very spiritual while mentally affirming her strength at the same time, Satine typed the coordinates to Grebak, Zygerria, the location Dooku's tracker was indicating.

As the engines rumbled, ready to shoot the spacecraft into an interstellar travel, Satine wished for the power of a million stars.


End file.
